


deeper than time

by Mia_Zeklos



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Chance Meetings, F/F, Film Noir, Meddling TARDIS, Missing Scene, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Revelations, Secrets, Slow Burn, not really but it does fit in a way, which is a tag I'm using solely for the vibe this fic will have, which somehow manages to happen to a married couple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-08-11 01:04:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16465739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mia_Zeklos/pseuds/Mia_Zeklos
Summary: The Doctor ends up stuck on Earth without her TARDIS and companions and is directed to a mysterious detective who specialises in the supernatural. At roughly the same point, River Song meets her second wife for the first time.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So! A thing that came to mind was 'what if Thirteen ends up meeting River during the time she spent as a detective in New York?'. Because, of course, she couldn't tell her who she is; not without disrupting their collective timelines. She wouldn't leave either, both because she needs her help and because she doesn't _want_ to. What could come out of that in that case? I asked myself that and then started thinking about all the ways it could go and, well, here we are. Still not entirely sure how long this will be, but it's looking like five chapters at least for now. This one is mostly an interlude, so the next ones will be significantly longer. Title taken from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6l4H689FtM).
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy it and feedback is always welcome!

“This is it.” The proclamation was enough to pull the Doctor out of her own mind for at least a moment. She looked up.

“You’re sure?” As much as she tried, she couldn’t hide the doubt in her voice. The idea that her only hope for getting off this rock again – especially with her ship and fellow travellers intact – was here of all places was even less encouraging than she had thought it would be.

“Certain.” Clearly proud of herself, the woman on the sidewalk made a gesture for her to follow. “I’ll show you the way. She can take it from there, I reckon.”

The building was difficult to navigate even here, in its presumably best time – it must have already been in ruins by the decades in the future that the Doctor had been aiming for when they’d arrived here – and infused with cigarette smoke, the stairs creaking under every step. She allowed herself a fleeting moment of wonder at the fact that she had ended up here at all.

Her companion – the older, now seemingly slightly anxious woman who had shown her the way – was the main reason, of course. She had seen the Doctor wandering aimlessly around Central Park in search of her suddenly misplaced TARDIS and had stuck up a conversation. _Your ship went missing and it wasn’t stolen? Oh, dear, I lost my_ son _in these parts of the city. Heaven knows how it happens – I didn’t understand it and neither did he – but I can take you to the woman who brought him back_.

She didn’t have anything to lose, really. She had already tried everything with her limited resources – namely, a screwdriver – and nothing had worked. She hadn’t been alone at the time, either, and the thought of everyone else inside the TARDIS potentially in danger was making her just a tad desperate. She hadn’t taught any of them a single thing about the way they were supposed to proceed in the rather likely event that she disappeared for no discernible reason one day and while she definitely regretted it now, there wasn’t much to be done about it before they were reunited. They could handle themselves, especially if they stuck together and if her guide’s son had left whatever pocket dimension he’d been sent to unscathed, then it only made sense to believe that they would, too. They, at least, were no ordinary uninformed humans, even if they were just humans all the same. Small, breakable humans – the ones she’d given a word to protect, at that.

So she had agreed. She’d let the woman – _Daisy_ – drag her through the muddy, foggy streets of New York and to a building so unassuming that it had to be deliberate; she’d let her lead her inside until she had idly started to entertain the idea that she was being drawn into a trap. It couldn’t be that, though; the woman’s enthusiasm was too sincere for anything of the sort.

“—and she has a good heart, too, I think, not that you would know it. Found my boy sooner than you’d believe and we’d agreed on a fee, but she wouldn’t take a cent. ‘It’s your son’, she said, ‘you shouldn’t have to fight just to keep him’ and that was that. And people told me that I’d have to bargain with her, she’s _really_ expensive, you see— Oh, we’re here.” Daisy patted her shoulder and made a move back towards the staircase. “Good luck with your ship, Ma’am.”

“Thanks.” The Doctor hadn’t been particularly talkative on their way to her potential saviour, but was now intensely curious. A woman who found inexplicably vanishing things was exactly what she needed – _too_ close to what she needed for comfort, in fact – but it was a small universe and an even smaller Earth. There weren’t many people who fit that description and would be willing to help her.

Still, it was worth a try. The Doctor stepped closer, raising a hand to knock on the door right when she heard the conversation floating through the cheap wood.

“—but you can thank me for that later.” The voice sounded distantly familiar, half-disguised by the honeyed layer of someone selling something. “Let me know how well it works first.”

“Will do.” The response sounded like a tongue being dragged through gravel and the Doctor plastered herself against the wall just as the door opened, revealing the speaker – a tall, blueish man with grey spikes littered all over his face. They flickered in and out of view and the Doctor had to look away, startled by the strength of the perception filter placed on him. A human from this time period wouldn’t stand a chance against it. “I owe you one.”

“You owe me more than that,” the first person – presumably the detective – quipped. A quick glimpse into the room revealed a dimly-lit, cramped space with an impossibly overcrowded desk as the centrepiece. The woman sitting behind it was only a silhouette, the back of her hat illuminated by the limited light coming from outside. “I’ll see you next week, Achriht.”

The man slinked out and the Doctor took his place in the shadows of the half-opened door, briefly glancing at the small plaque placed on it. _Angel Detective Agency_. _Very promising._ She was already thinking of giving the room a subtle once-over with the sonic when said room’s only inhabitant called out to seemingly no one in particular.

“You know, I think it’s about time to start charging by the minute for contemplative staring at the door until hell freezes over.” The Doctor, who was rather short on finances as it were, stepped through the threshold without a second thought. “ _Now_ we’re talking.” The woman leant forward in her chair. It didn’t change much – the stark contrast between the small lamp on the desk and the overcast day outside left the majority of her in shadows. “Or we’ll start to soon, I hope. Why don’t you take a seat, dear?”

The tone was gentle if slightly condescending and the Doctor winced as she followed the invitation, trying to school her expression into something not quite as apprehensive and restless as it must have been. This up close, she could see that the lamp’s placement had been entirely deliberate. Not the kind of detective who involved their identity in their cases, then, or at least not often. She could work with that.

“It’s about my ship,” the Doctor started. She felt almost silly, asking help from the species she’d spent so many lifetimes saving, but she wasn’t exactly drowning in options. “It just vanished into thin air. And it _is_ the kind of ship that can do that, but not— like this.”

“Mmm.” The detective’s dark red nails were tapping an impatient rhythm against the surface of the desk. Meeting someone this unflappable by even the most outlandish things was always a rarity and usually a delight, but it was difficult to cherish the moment when her interlocutor had remained huddled in her coat as if it were a physical shield between them. “Did it disappear from the harbour?”

“ _Near_ the harbour.”

“During your voyage, then? How did you survive?”

“It was out of the water already.” Perhaps this had been a mistake. A human who dabbled in the occult and had actually stumbled into a way to bring people from the occasional crack in time wasn’t enough to find a TARDIS. She had hoped for some kind of advanced technology, perhaps, but, “I would have handled it on my own, but I’m short on time. My— crew was on board when it disappeared, you see.”

“Your _crew_?” The Doctor narrowed her eyes. There was something in the pitch of her voice, something excited that hadn’t been there before and oh, _this_ had definitely been a mistake, a big, big mistake. An irresistible one, too. She should have _known_. Who else would it be? “So you’re a captain?”

“You could say that.” The sneaking suspicion and distant resemblance were all pushed together now, forming a disastrous kind of giddiness; the kind that had only ever brought her trouble before. It was too late to do anything about it now; might as well get it over with, she thought, although her mind had already wandered to the idea of anything but that. “I was told that you could help me, Miss—”

“Malone.” Excellent as always at sensing when she could take advantage of the situation, her detective pushed the desk lamp up by a fraction; just enough to illuminate her brilliant smile and sharp features. There was no hint of recognition in her eyes and it was far more unsettling than it had any right to be after all this time. “Melody Malone. Whoever sent you here was right, by the way, it _is_ my kind of case. Now,” River leant forward until the space between them had melted to almost nothing, “tell me more about this ship of yours.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is more introduction than anything else, really, as the dynamic is set up. It was a fun one to write because I don't think I've ever written from River's POV before unless she was a child, because it's just shaping up to be a wonderful relationship (and inner conflict for the Doctor, if I can allow myself a spoiler) to work with, _and_ because this is the first result from my NaNoWriMo efforts. Hope you enjoy it and feedback is always welcome!

When River had first opened the small agency she held in New York, she’d never expected to accept the cases that any other private detective in the city gladly would. There had been a _reason_ for her presence, and even before – and after – that, she had never been particularly good at handling the repetitive and mundane for extended periods of time. As such, her clients weren’t the sort she would describe as _the usual_ no matter what standards she applied to them. It was rare for two cases to even distantly resemble each other, really.

Even so, Joan Smith was an unusual customer.

Her looks had been the first thing to tip her off that that would be the case. It wasn’t that she was all that strange in that department – very pretty, River would have thought had she allowed herself the observation (she had) in a timeless sort of way; gentle and delicate and yet stronger than she appeared at first glance. No, what drew the most attention were the _clothes_.

The long, flowing coat would have been strange enough, but the layer underneath was all the more striking, made up of clothes that _did_ theoretically exist already but were rather out of place in this half of the century unless you were exceedingly rich, rather eccentric, or both. Her hair was interesting, too, at least for the decade they currently inhabited, and her face had the wide-eyed, determined but helpless look that so many actresses would try to achieve in too many ways for River to count. It came to her naturally, though; she wasn’t fearful or timid, just rather restless and focused on the task at hand. Her crew consisted of three other people and she had already described them in great detail – more than enough for River to realise just how much she wanted them back. In the light of those revelations, it had felt rather tactless to ask whether she came from a different planet or just a different time, so they’d collectively turned their attention on Miss Smith’s ship instead.

Much to her dismay, she was rather secretive about that too. _It can be a bit difficult, but it gets me where I need to be_ , she would say, or, _my entire life is on that ship_ , but she hadn’t bothered to clarify either of those statements. She’d just stuffed her hands in her bottomless pockets to protect them from the rain, had pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and kept sneaking quick glances in River’s direction as if she genuinely thought that she wouldn’t notice. It was flattering if a little unnerving and for her part, River did little but listen: it was both part of the job and a healthy bit of fascination for the leaps and loops that the woman’s story took her on while they approached the site of her accident.

“It’s just that they’re still a little new, you see,” she said, brow still furrowed in a frown as she kicked a stray pinecone with the edge of her boot like it had personally offended her. “Not really used to life at— sea. They trust me to handle the things they don’t understand yet every time and I don’t know what could happen if I just leave them.”

“You’re not just leaving them,” River said and accompanied the reminder with a vague gesture around them. “You’re doing the best you can to find them.”

“Yeah.” Miss Smith gave her a rueful smile with just a hint of hope inside it. “At least I’m getting the best help I can, I suppose.”

She didn’t seem at all sarcastic – or even capable of it in large doses, really – so River added it to the list of flatteries she hadn’t expected from someone so anxious and reserved. “That I can assure you of. Now that we’re here, I’d like you to walk me through every step of what happened until we find the source of the problem.”

“That won’t be an issue; I remember it perfectly well. It was so unexpected.” It had been downright offensive, if the sour aftertaste of the words was anything to go by. “This is where I last saw them,” she said as they marched past yet another pond in the depths of the park. It gave the impression of an innocent enough place and it was altogether too easy to believe that it had become a hot spot for temporal displacement. It was always the slow places, River had noticed. Regular humans noticed them too _– places where time slows down_ was a strangely popular concept among them, considering the kind of damage it could do if it was a regular occurrence in a particular spot. “I didn’t _do_ anything. It just vanished into thin air along with everyone on board and I tried looking everywhere I could think of, but it was no use. In the end, your friend Daisy noticed that there was something wrong; suppose she noticed I had lost something. She came up to me and said that the same thing happened to her son. You found a way to reach him, apparently.”

“I _always_ do.” The case in question was still fresh in her mind, not so much because of the missing boy but because of the circumstances around his disappearance. This part of the city was littered with vulnerable points in time and Daisy Whitman’s unfortunate son had been pulled out through one of them, misplaced in an entirely different world and surrounded by too many foreign things to be able to comprehend the situation. That he had ended up on a habitable human colony and had survived until River’s arrival was a small miracle all on its own – he could have just as easily landed somewhere in the desolation of deep space and then no one at all would have been able to help him. It was the only proof she had that it was just a coincidence and not a malevolent force – _for_ _now_. She would need to bring up a more impressive array of weapons if that became the case.

But for the time being, she’d done it. It had been reward enough to see the disbelief on his mother’s face and River idly wondered if she could draw the same delight from her newest find. It was what it was all about, in the end – her clients were of more service to her than she was to them sometimes, she suspected. Entertainment was scarce in this time and place and she could never have enough research. Doing a good deed every now and again didn’t hurt either. It could turn into one of the stories she could tell _him_ when they met, just as a surprise between the ones who never failed to get her a scandalised, “ _River_!” in return.

“If you’ve had any experience with this—other place before, you must know what’s on the other side.” Another one of those supposedly sly looks as Miss Smith kept examining their close surroundings, as if her ship was going to jump out of whatever had swallowed it any minute now. It wasn’t impossible – River had had her fair share of experience with unpredictable vessels, even when they proved to be helpful in the long term – but not very likely, either. Most vessels weren’t as willing to listen to their pilot’s wishes as often as the one she was used to did. “If we assume that it’s not a new random exit every time, that is.”

“Quite an assumption given the size of this disturbance, but I can try.” Bringing something as big as an entire ship back – one from a foreign origin, she suspected, and not just in the on-world sense – would be a feat if it was in danger, but she’d done worse. Or better, depending on the point of view. She could always just _ask_ what exactly it was, of course, but River wasn’t in the business of asking questions unless she absolutely needed to. They hadn’t reached that point just yet and she’d tried to refrain as much as she could – there were far too many species out there who didn’t like sharing until their life was on the line. Her current client had been far too kind for anything like that to occur, she thought. “Now, if you’ll give me a second, I can use you to track the remaining traces of your ship on you, provided that there are any. From then on, I can try to jump after it in the same instant when it disappeared. If it works—”

“No!”

River froze mid-way through pushing the sleeve of her coat back to reach for her Vortex Manipulator and looked up, distracted by the sudden outburst. “I beg your pardon?”

Miss Smith had adopted that collected-yet-mildly-terrified look again, reaching out as if she wanted to physically make her stop but had thought better of it.

“What are you doing?”

Was this a test of some kind? River’s list of unusual clients contained quite a lot of that as well – people who had opted to waste her time by trying to measure her abilities before bringing up what their actual problem was. It _was_ the early twentieth century, after all, and even if she’d made a name for herself in the city already, there was never shortage of backward humans for her to stumble upon.

Somehow, she doubted that that was the case here.

“I’m looking for your ship. You _hired_ me for this, remember?”

“Of course I remember.” It had been an honest question, really. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d dealt with sudden, unexplainable memory losses, but her client was far too agitated for that. “And you were ready to throw yourself into the void because of it with this— machine? How do you know it’s somewhere _safe_?”

“I don’t.” Vaguely troubled by the truth and the way it had come out of what was essentially a stranger, River amended, “It’s sweet of you to worry, but I’m rather difficult to kill, dear.” The reassurance was as flippant as it was sincere, just as she’d intended. A muscle twitched in her companion’s jaw. “It’s no trouble, really. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” There was enough fervent earnestness in the response to almost convince her that she wasn’t dealing with someone misplaced in time. Few others would be so certain after such a short amount of time, but humans in this age tended to be strikingly naive. It was partially her fault for doing her level best to look more reliable than she could ever be, but it was still an easier sell here than it was in even the near future. “But I wouldn’t want you to get hurt on my behalf.”

“No such thing,” River hurried to say, but it was of no use – Miss Smith was by her side a moment later, already shaking her head in refusal. She fretted over the Vortex Manipulator for a few seconds, clearly wondering whether to try and disable whatever infernal technology she doubtlessly thought it was. River pulled her hand away before she could make a decision and didn’t miss the disappointment that painted her features for an instant, paired by – oddly enough – a flash of hurt.

“You wouldn’t even know where you’re going,” she said. Her voice sounded rougher now, nearly angry and definitely affected. “No. There has to be another way.”

Too startled to disobey, River let herself be pulled away from the pond and back in the general direction of the street. Detectives were _meant_ to be expendable; everyone who had tried to hire her so far had shared that sentiment and yet somehow, in the thousands upon thousands of people in this city, she had met the one person who _disagreed_.

***

“It’s not that I don’t think they can handle themselves,” Miss Smith was saying, back on the topic of her crew now that she’d calmed down a little. The small diner they had found to seek shelter from the rain was nearly empty, but she’d still lowered her voice. “They can. But it drives me mad, being unable to reach them.”

“I know how you feel.” River reached out to squeeze her hand over the table. It had been a simple gesture, meant to offer comfort more than anything else, but her client surprised her by holding on tightly in return, those big brown eyes darting up to her own yet again. It was a strange pair of eyes, strange enough for her to notice even in the dim light of her office a few hours back. Seeking reassurance and reassuring all at once; soft and stone cold depending on what her mind had strayed to. River had the horrible feeling that she was enjoying the contrast a little too much.

“I warned them that it could be dangerous to come with me, but they didn’t _listen_.” There was something in her tone that held enough intensity for River to be halfway convinced that she was somehow personally responsible for the situation. “They were _sure_ , they said, so sure that it would be the adventure of a lifetime. Why does no one ever listen? Is it something about my face? They keep saying that I’m the one in charge and then— then we end up here. Why does it always have to be like this?”

River allowed herself a quick smile. This kind of talk felt far too familiar, in a way that had made her feel rather smug back in a world that had since ceased to exist. _River, **River** , why do you have to be this? _It was an ongoing question for others too, then. Even the cadence of her little speech had made her feel nearly homesick for someone she had no intention to miss just now.

Miss Smith’s expression darkened even further at the sound of the laughter she’d tried to stifle. “Something funny?”

“You sound just like a friend of mine is all,” she admitted. It didn’t seem to help much. The warm brown of before appeared almost black in the afternoon autumn gloom as her companion narrowed her eyes.

“If you jump into unnecessary dangers when you’re with your friend too, I can see why he would be displeased, _Miss Malone_. How would he ever catch a break?”

“Oh, he’s used to it, I’m sure.” He had always trusted her to take care of herself, and for good reason. River had never been quite as fragile as the humans that flocked around him, even if two of them happened to be her parents. It was for the best – if there was any fussing over her involved, River had come to a point where she preferred to learn that she was being a source of trouble rather than genuine concern. It was what they were both comfortably used to, after all. “You might need to follow that example if we spend any more time together, Miss Smith. And we’ll have to, as it appears, because you won’t let me track the signal the way I will eventually need to do.”

“One step at a time,” Miss Smith chastised again. She was picking at her meal to give the illusion of eating, but didn’t appear to actually be doing much of it. For some as of yet unspecified reason, the Vortex Manipulator had unsettled her more than River had expected. She would have seen it coming if she had been just about any regular citizen, but the people who came to her for help – here or anywhere in the universe – could rarely fit in such a category. “This device can’t be the only way.”

“And you would know that.” River hadn’t meant to challenge her, but the glint of irritation in the woman’s eyes only increased. She quickly added _easily offended_ and _might be a mechanic on the side_ to the disturbingly short list of observations that could be made about her client.

“I might be able to help, at least.” There was more she wanted to say, that much was obvious, but she’d opted to hold back for now. At this point, River couldn’t bring herself to be surprised by that choice. “Thing is, I don’t really have anywhere to stay in the meantime.” She looked smaller, suddenly, as if something about the awareness had crushed a bit of whatever hope she had of getting her crew back. It was yet another thing River could understand – it was terrifying to be all on your own in a place that had single handedly robbed you of everything you had. It was an alarming thought. She had never truly mastered the balance of leaving her personal feelings out of a situation that had somehow appealed to them. “My ship’s the only home I have. Everything I had is still there— this city is—”

“You can stay with me, then,” River offered and promptly winced at the ease she had done it with. She couldn’t really berate the Doctor for all the people he picked at random if she did the exact same thing, even if it was on a much smaller scale. Trusting people enough to let them into her home wasn’t all that difficult for someone who slept with a blaster under their pillow, but it shouldn’t have been this simple either. “It’s just for a few days, isn’t it? Until we figure out a way to proceed that you find— acceptable.”

The look of gratitude that followed her statement was overwhelming in its intensity, presumably induced by both the offer and the concession about their working methods. Well, her working methods, really, but the customer was always right, at least until they turned their back.

“Just a few days,” Miss Smith echoed with yet another one of those eager nods. “That would be amazing, thank you.” The comfortable silence after the generous nod that River gave in response didn’t last long. “There’s a catch to this, isn’t there.”

It hadn’t even been a question. River’s grin widened. Negotiations were so much easier when people understood just how easy it was for her to win.

“Inevitably, yes, there is.” It pleased her to see that this statement all by itself wasn’t enough to discourage her client from finding out more. Working with people fond of giving up easily was neither entertaining nor thought provoking and she had given up on it a while back. “I understand that there might be a lot that you can’t tell me. You don’t need to deny it,” she raised a hand to stop the protest she could see bubbling up, “it’s rather obvious. It makes sense, too. The kinds of cases that come my way are often shrouded in secrets. _But_ , if we’re to continue, I need you to be honest with me.”

Miss Smith looked away, eyes darting between River and the table between them as if she could find the solution somewhere in the middle. It really _was_ understandable, if a bit frustrating. River had seen enough of the universe to understand why people kept their silence. Sometimes it was a personal decision, sometimes a religious one or the upholding of an oath. Sometimes, it was because they had no choice; it hadn’t happened to her too many times yet, not with how relatively short her history of independent time travel was, but she had seen the after-effects of it enough times. It was the Doctor’s eyes after she asked a question he couldn’t – _shouldn’t_ – give an answer to; his touch, gentler and more delicate than ever when she talked about Luna University and her plans for the future and everything she wanted to see. It was his voice, mild and still berating when she managed to surprise him yet again.

 _River, you can’t **do** things like this_ , he’d said, even back when the name River hadn’t meant anything at all to her and the world to him. It had always angered her, in a way. She could take care of herself and she’d told him so often enough, but, _It’s a terrifying universe out there and if something happens—_

It had always been this – an unfinished sentence suspended in the space between them, filled with all of her history that he kept hoarding to himself. Her client’s expression was nothing like that, more regret and caution than secrecy, but it was close enough for River to feel the weight of it.

“Agreed,” she said at last. “It’s only fair. I can’t tell you much, but I _can_ do half of the work if you need me to. I don’t want—” she was fiddling with her fork again. “I want my friends back, but I won’t have anyone else hurt because of that, not if I have any say about it. Especially not someone trying to help me.”

“You _do_ realise that this is my job.”

“That’s not the point.” Miss Smith pushed her chair back abruptly enough for the quiet conversations on at least a couple of the table next to them to cease immediately. “The point is, I was told you can make extraordinary things happen. I’ll tell you what I can and for everything I can’t, I’ll do the work myself. How about that?”

It would be a strange arrangement – even stranger than some of the more convoluted agreements she’d had with working partners – but it was too tempting to refuse, more than ever at the sight of the rekindled fire in her client’s eyes. River got to her feet too and reached out for the handshake she knew was to follow.

“Sounds wonderful.”

“Well, I’d hope so.” The anxiety in the woman’s entire being had yet to fade away, but the air around her was just slightly easier to breathe in already and for now, River decided she could consider it a start.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Now_ we're starting to get somewhere! I'll be honest with you, guys; the proofreading on this chapter isn't stellar, but this is still the product of NaNo, which is consuming an incredible amount of time, as it so happens.  
>  Hope you enjoy it and feedback is always welcome!

River’s shampoo, placed within easy reach in front of the mirror in her cramped bathroom, had a clearly visible expiration date set for September the 5th, 4826. She was either unused to letting people in here or tended to let in the sort of people who wouldn’t be surprised by things outside of their own time. Considering that the Doctor had never set foot here before, she found both options rather unsettling.

 _So reckless_. For someone who studied – and exploited – history for a living, River had never fretted much over how she was being perceived in the times and places she visited. It never failed to get her in trouble, of course, and she _never_ did anything to patch up the impression she’d left while there. And why would she? Try as she might, the Doctor had never been at all good at changing her wife’s mind in absolutely any direction she refused to go in. The plans she devised were always brilliant, but it wasn’t in her nature to be cautious while executing them. Meteors and comets didn’t care about the crater they left behind, no matter how long a planet would have to take to repair the damage. Not even if it took an eternity.

With a sigh, the Doctor turned off the shower just as the water started growing colder. This wasn’t like her, she was almost sure. She’d explored some of the aspects of this newish mind, but the reluctant resentment mixed with love, while still lurking in the back of her head, had belonged to someone else, some two faces ago. Darillium and the years that they’d managed to steal away for themselves had been filled with both joy and adventure and an undercurrent of future grief, but it had also been _peaceful_ to a degree. She’d still riled him up on occasion – more out of concern on both sides than anything else – but it had been nothing quite as explosive as _before_.

River had been different on Darillium; not in a bad way, but a still palpable one. She had loved him, there had been no doubt about it, but he’d definitely had an even harder time getting her to listen to him than the man she’d fallen in love with in the first place. _He_ had had his methods, but even here, in the privacy of the shower stall, the memory made the Doctor shake her head vehemently. It was a funny thing, to be so scandalised by the thought of what River and her own past self could be getting up to right this moment, but it wasn’t an unfamiliar emotion at this point. The past always managed to look much more unacceptable in hindsight.

No, she would clearly have to handle this – _her_ – the way the rest of the Universe did. She had got a taste of what that was like back at Hydroflax’s deathbed and she hadn’t enjoyed it the slightest bit, but it would have to do. She couldn’t mention anything to make her suspicious, not without disrupting the flow of their time and damaging it enough for their last meeting to never have happened. The idea alone was terrifying. One small mistake and she could lose it all – all their years on Darillium, all the running they’d done in the times they spent off-world, all of it up to the very last few hours before River had taken off and never looked back – all of it could slip away from her memory in an instant if she overstepped in even the most innocent of ways.

How, _how_ had she ended up here? None of this should have ever happened. And to think that the TARDIS had abandoned her _again_ in the most vulnerable position possible – it made her feel so helpless. Yet another thought that made her blood run cold; the possibility of knowing every detail about the situation she was in while also being incapable of doing anything about it.

Perhaps it would never have to get to that, though. River had the wits and the technology to always find a way out and if the Doctor would have to make sure to help her find the TARDIS without her realising that that was what they were looking for, then, well, she’d manage it somehow. There was no need to despair just yet. The Doctor slipped on the warm bathrobe she’d been provided with and snuck out of the bathroom, still rigorously drying her hair as she made her way to the kitchen.

“Here,” River said in lieu of ‘good morning’ and pushed a cup of tea in her general direction over the table, “I hope you’ve slept well. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

She certainly looked like it, the Doctor couldn’t help but notice. She was all business today, dressed in something resembling a military uniform from the very distant future and yet another floor-length coat that could keep it all hidden. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail as neat as it could ever get and she was putting on that startlingly bright lipstick again. It _was_ just lipstick this time, the Doctor was quite sure, but somehow that didn’t make it any less intimidating.

“Where are we going?”

“Back to where you first landed— shipwrecked, if you will.” The Doctor picked up her tea and decided not to deign the amendment with a response. It would be no good, especially since she knew that River was fishing for information. It had been part of their deal, after all, and it would appear that they were both determined to make good of their promises. “Only this time, I’ll have more equipment with me.”

“How much?”

“Enough for us to need a car.”

Was that how she earned people’s trust when she was on her own? If the Doctor hadn’t known her just well enough to be aware of how this would go, she would have easily believed that her detective had a car parked outside precisely for their current needs instead of hotwiring whatever vehicle she would find useful today. To an untrained eye, she was the picture of innocence; the kind of woman who would make the stars bend to her wishes just for the sake of helping out. No wonder the majority of the people with unexplainable accidents in the city were aware of her existence.

“Is it going to be a military operation?” The Doctor asked instead of dwelling further into their transport situation and, at River’s raised eyebrow, gave a quick nod toward her attire. The smile she received in response was the first sign of sincere amusement she’d caught on her face since her arrival.

“Is your ship worth one?”

“No.” She had thought she’d come prepared for whatever River had planned, but she’d been prepared for being taken by surprise, too. She knew her wife well enough for that. “No reason to be too loud, is there?”

“No.” River sounded oddly disappointed as she fiddled with one of the various knickknacks thrown around the kitchen table between them. “I suppose not. Plus, it should be easy enough to handle it on our own. If not, I can always consult someone similarly knowledgeable.”

 _Similarly knowledgeable_. It was true and the Doctor hadn’t meant to preen over it, but it was the kind of praise that one could rarely receive. The fact that she’d been the one to teach River half of it didn’t change that one bit. The implication of having to consult the unnamed someone wasn’t lost on her and her stay here could get even more complicated if it ever came to that, but for now, she could allow herself not to pay it too much mind. River had got herself out of a wide array of trouble all on her own countless times over her considerably long life. Helping out damsels in distress wasn’t too much trouble, or so the Doctor had found out some time ago.

“Anything I can do to help with the equipment?”

Another one of those assessing looks that made her own eyes stray away from River’s before it could last too long. The more she engaged, the closer she got to the chance of being discovered. It would only take a word or two; the wrong expression or figure of speech. The ice she was walking on had rarely been thinner. “Depends on what you’re used to.”

“I may surprise you.”

River’s grin was unsettlingly bright. “I had a feeling you might.”

***

“Here, hold this.”

“Of course.”

The Doctor had been doing a lot of holding this and that for the past hour or so and she had yet to even try and guess what River was trying to do. They were back at the pond, the fog that had reigned around the city since the early hours of the morning hiding them from the view of eventual passersby to both of their relief. There was a lot to conceal at this point, really – the machine that River had situated on the water’s edge was taking up far too much space to go unnoticed otherwise and making a combination of noises that didn’t resemble anything remotely human. The wires she’d bound everything in weren’t precisely helpful in that regard either. The Doctor couldn’t bring herself to be too hard on her, not when she wasn’t great at hiding her otherness amongst humans either, but rather wished that she could go back in her own personal timeline and offer River more options than whatever bits and pieces of technology she’d scavenged every time she’d broken out of Stormcage; something that would make her safer when she was on her own. Whether River would have accepted was an entirely different issue and it most likely resolution was _no_ – she valued her independence and prided herself in her skills too much for that – but it would have been worth an attempt. Why had she never thought to at least _try_?

The answer was an obvious one. River had never let her know that she’d needed help to begin with and she’d always assumed that she could handle it all on her own. It was difficult not to when her wife had been so far ahead to begin with; when she’d known everything there was to know by the time the Doctor had just started feeling drawn to her. Somehow even when she’d seen her back in Berlin, right at the very start and in the events that had followed directly after, there had been the underlying resignation to the fact that River was in love with, but not necessarily in _need_ of her husband. They’d saved one another so many times, had started their history with the struggle over which one of them would have to burn themselves up for the Library’s salvation and she’d always thought—

And she hadn’t been _wrong_ , really. River could handle herself just fine. And if it would have been possible for the Doctor to have perhaps made it all a little easier for her, then she’d missed that opportunity. There was nothing that could be done now. It was crucial to remember just how off limits River was to her in the here and now and yet, she couldn’t help herself. She was so _alive_ , wandering around and fiddling with technology she had no business even having and _definitely_ had no business bringing into this decade, making notes in a small notebook she kept pulling out of one of the pockets of her coat. She was as vague as she could get with the nature of whatever examination she was carrying on and the Doctor only decided to protest when the next step was to start trying to connect some of the wires to _her_.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she said, voice likely somewhat muffled by the pile of various generators of temporal energy that River had piled up in her arms over the last few minutes. “I’m not even sure what it _is_.”

On a better, brighter day, the Doctor might have decided to feign ignorance just for the sake of making her cover story slightly more convincing. Today, it was more about genuine confusion than anything else, right along with the fear of being discovered. The last thing she needed was anything akin to a medical examination. River had always been quick enough to put two and two together where anyone remotely like the two of them was concerned.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” she said now with the confidence of someone who had done this a thousand times before. For all the Doctor knew, it was definitely a possibility. “All I need is to track down whatever hint of your ship you’ve got left on your body. Sometimes missing things leave a trace or a trail, or— or a _memory_. When people say that something’s disappeared, it just means that it’s either been misplaced or deconstructed or transformed in some way, but nothing ever really _disappears_. That’s not how it works.”

 _Oh, River_. There was so much that she had to learn still and the majority of it would break her heart, but this was the kind of knowledge that one was born with. Most Gallifreyans had senses enhanced enough to be able to feel the turns and twitches of the Universe as they happened, but she hadn’t been _supposed_ to be burdened with this. Her parents were only human, after all, and humans weren’t built for this amount of stress; not even ones enhanced enough to barely fit the description like River had been.

“How could you know for sure?”

“I just do.” River got to her feet to secure the last of her wires between the two of them and the Vortex Manipulator. Unlike yesterday, the sight of it brought a small spell of calm with itself: it was primitive enough that whatever they tried to do with it, it wouldn’t be able to reveal anyone’s species without being forced to do extensive research. “It’s like there’s a tally running in the back of my head; things that exist and ones that have ceased to. It’s not something I’m aware of constantly, to be honest, it comes and it goes, but if I make a point of paying attention to something and something happens to it all of a sudden, I’ll know. I might not know what exactly it is, but it doesn’t matter – you can trust me. Your crew is out there. We’ll just have to find a way to track them down.”

“And you’re certain?”

“I give you my word.”

Ah, yes. There was the human bit. The awareness of the life and death around her just existed and she’d accepted it as easily as she took everything else in stride. The brightest minds of Gallifrey would have had a field day with her, the Doctor reckoned and was suddenly glad that the circumstances had never taken them together to her homeworld. River would have loved to investigate, but the chances of her realising just how many people would have wanted to examine _her_ were rather slim. Not that she hadn’t always known how extraordinary she was – that she was perfectly capable of acknowledging – but even after all the training and tests she’d undergone since infancy, she’d never really thought that any of it was about her nature; had never realised how many people would consider it to be so. It was only one of the plethora of ways she always surprised everyone, the Doctor had observed; people tended to underestimate her in the only way that mattered.

“It’s a complicated matter, really, and difficult to explain, but it _is_ there.” She’d started fiddling with the Vortex Manipulator now, pushing buttons and pressing into the screen as if it would be of any help. The device looked downright ancient at this point and while it definitely had its history, the Doctor suspected that River had just fiddled with it enough to ruin it even further than the state she’d originally received it in. She’d never been particularly good at leaving things alone until they had as many functions as physically possible. Sometimes, she’d even made them burn out in the process. It was one of the many reasons why she and the TARDIS got along so well – they both seemed to agree that there was always room for more. River glanced up, her bright eyes turning a shade kinder. “We’ll get you home, ship and team intact. I’ve done this more times than I can count.”

All right, this _had_ to be a lie. While there had always been a lot that her wife had hidden from her, she was sure that she couldn’t have spent more than a year in this time without the two of them running into each other eventually. Or maybe that was it – perhaps the Doctor had been meant to stumble upon her here now, this far down the line. _Meant_ , of course, could put the blame in only one place and that was what made the confusion even more intense: the TARDIS _knew_. Why would she send her here and then strand her away without any method of getting back unless she came into contact with River? Everything about the situation was grounds for the Universe’s easiest paradox and yet, if it hadn’t been meant to happen, why was she _here_? Despite River’s rather pragmatic views of what the rift in time and space had to be, the Doctor couldn’t shake off the feeling that it had to be more.

“Is it always disappearing things that you focus on?” she wondered aloud.

“Not always.” The temporal energy shifting around them had intensified, pulling them closer together like magnetic forces as soon as River had somehow managed to include them both into the ridiculous amount of scavenged technology she’d brought with herself. “Last month, there was this— identity crisis in the artistic sector of the city.” The smile the words were accompanied by was anything but amused. “A film star and an angel’s kiss; you know how it is. Or you don’t. Perhaps it’s best if you don’t. A lot of the machinery they’d built was ahead of its time, so I took most of it away. Had no clue whether I’d ever use it again, but I suppose it was destined for you, Miss Smith.”

Too wrapped up in the hints about angels and stolen identities to focus on the conversation entirely – what was River _doing_ in this city and why had she never brought up any of it apart from the bare necessities? – the Doctor suddenly came to the realisation that she was being flirted with.

But of _course_. She should have really seen it coming. She had a rather clear idea of what she looked like after thorough examination of her new features, but she’d still failed to realise that River would definitely notice it _more_. Every sign of it was there – the mildly fascinated, fascinating curve of her lips, the inviting glint in her eyes, the distant, barely concealed caution of overstepping by this time period’s rules. It was understandable – all things considered, she was playing a dangerous game here. If the Doctor had been the Doctor to her, she should have scolded her for it.

Still, she couldn’t keep back from replying to the obvious bait.

“Is it really destiny if I made the choice to come here?”

“That’s an excellent question.” River stepped a little closer. “With this weak spot in time and space we’re trying to rein in, is anything really our choice? It never really is entirely random, you know; all my cases related to it have been a success. I’m afraid, though, that the answer will have to wait for another day.”

“Does that mean we’re ready to start?” _And go where?_ She’d never asked explicitly out of fear of just how alien it would seem to take it all in stride so easily. The general New York population in the thirties wasn’t meant to resemble whatever front the Doctor was trying to put up, she was quite sure of that, but overstepping the line of her detective’s suspension of disbelief was just playing with fire – another thing that River’s presence had always managed to bring out of her. Not today, though. She _couldn’t_ let it happen today.

“Just about.” River’s hand covered her own and the Doctor tried not to cling on to her too hard, lest she noticed every giveaway there was in the simple physical contact. Touching had always been a rather elaborate affair for the two of them. “I’m sending us to the moment of your ship’s disappearance two days ago – or, in fact, the moment right after where I can still track the energy left behind by the anomaly. It’s the same kind of energy that my machine uses, only I can analyse it from afar instead of diving right in. Would this be an acceptable level of risk for you? Enough to put your mind at ease?”

Did she really think she could _mock_ her for this? Oh, she’d _show_ her. Her wife had always disregarded her safety and if she only knew, it would wipe the teasing, seductive smirk right off her face and—

—and she couldn’t do any of it.

“A little bit.”

“Good! This is bound to be exciting.” Her smile was nearly apologetic now. Anyone who had ever had contact with a Vortex Manipulator would confirm that it was the exact opposite of _exciting_ , but she clearly didn’t want to discourage her. “It always is for people who’ve never tried it before.”

“You’re quite an odd woman, Miss Malone.”

“Quite,” River agreed readily. She had always taken the description as a compliment regardless of her assessor’s intention, but it was even more pronounced now. It only made sense – she could see appreciation for what it was without difficulty when it had been made this obvious for her. The Doctor should have felt guilty for her carelessness, really, but it was so _difficult_ not to play along. “And I’m about to become even more so for you, I’m afraid. Hold on to me.”

It was the easiest and the hardest thing in the world and before she could think too much about the consequences – for her, for them, for the Universe at large – the Doctor’s grasp on her wife’s hand tightened just as the world around them grew dark.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is both a bit late and a bit - a lot - longer compared to everything I've posted in this story so far, but there was really no way to cut it off earlier in order to make them more balanced. It's not the end of the world, given that it's just a thousand-ish words above the last one, but it still irks me enough to want to stick to this new length now. ;D Next time, we're back to River's POV, as I'm sort of feeling the absence of her insight already.  
> Hope you enjoy it and feedback is always welcome!

For a moment, the Doctor thought that all of their hours assembling the technology that could track down her TARDIS had been in vain. The time and the place _felt_ the same – it was in the air, almost imperceptible and as vague as all the other senses of a Time Lord tended to be. They had either moved insignificantly or not at all.

And yet, the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes were River’s bright smile – the kind that usually meant triumph with a dash of preening over yet another job well done. It was a sight familiar – and pleasant – enough to nearly bring her to tears before the Doctor managed to compose herself.

“I take it that it worked.”

“It did,” River confirmed. Her hold on the Doctor was surprisingly strong and she realised several seconds too late that her wife was just about the only thing keeping her on her feet. Vortex Manipulators were so _crude_ and always required some getting used to and she’d never liked them particularly much, but suddenly, they were her favourite thing in the world.

Well, second favourite. The gold medallist was actually standing right in front of her.

“Where are we?”

“Back here, two days and some three hours and twenty-five minutes ago. Quite close, I think. I gave us a few minutes of leeway just in case, but if your ship’s vanished, we should get at least another hour before all traces manage to—is this a _music hall_?”

It did, as a matter of fact, look like precisely that at first glance, and even if it wasn’t, it was a thoroughly ridiculous place for a ship – an actual, human vessel – to end up without any help from anyone. The Doctor winced.

“Is there any chance that your calculations were wrong?”

“They’ve never been wrong _before_.” River was put together enough to not start entertaining the idea that an exception was possible. It was a predictable reaction, given her usual 100% success rate with time travel, but the Doctor had still hoped that it would be so outlandish as a suggestion that it would throw her away for a moment. “And I’m pretty sure that’s not the case now. This isn’t where you landed, right?”

There was no way out of it now unless she wanted to actually lie. It was too counterproductive an option to even consider at this point. This place was what she had been aiming for, and even if it was several decades – centuries, perhaps, even – into the future, it was still fully recognisable.

“No, it's not. It's where I was trying to land, but,” the Doctor shrugged helplessly, as if it would be any help when it came to distracting River - River of all people - from the fact that a ship had somehow found itself inside the Apollo Theatre. The ship of someone who had until that moment pretended to be a perfectly ordinary and innocent if a bit persistent ship captain, no less. “It didn't exactly work out. We bounced right off, ended up in Central Park instead. And then they were gone.”

"So there's something in this building that's stopped you from entering by force." River was typing away on the Vortex Manipulator again. She had already loaded it with enough tech that it was a miracle it still managed to work. "You said you were aiming for here. Were you aiming for _now_?"

Right, back to the clueless act, then. This was getting a little too close for comfort and once River had sensed that something was up, she wouldn't let it slide quite as easily as she'd done until now. Best to avoid it as a situation altogether. "I'm not sure what you mean."

River's arched eyebrow was almost enough to get her to confess everything then and there. She had always been an expert at drawing out the information she wanted with any means she had on hand. The prospect of what she had on hand now was both incredibly tempting and explosively dangerous. “I mean,” she said slowly, “Is your ship fit for travel in time or only in space?”

“Just space.” A fit of odd, nervous laughter followed the statement. “I'm not sure my people's technology is that advanced yet, Miss Malone.”

“Your people, which would happen to be—”

“I'm afraid I can't go this far.”

“Ah.” Disappointed but not surprised. This the Doctor could deal with. “Yes, I suppose you couldn't.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” She hadn't meant to snap at her, but it had come out exactly that way; enough for her wife to turn towards her again, expression almost astonished at the tone she'd been met with.

“I deal with a lot of unique cases, you see," she said. Despite the nonchalance, there was something both cynical and a little condescending in her voice. It was rich coming from her considering all the secrets she tended to keep, but the Doctor couldn't afford to tell her as much right now - or ever, if she could help it. “People take vows for secrecy or have names that their human shapes can't pronounce or they're just afraid enough of me to think that I'd track them down back to their homeworld—”

“Is this a frequent issue?”

“More frequent than you'd expect.”

That, come to think of it, could probably explain why people never stopped shooting at her no matter where she went. River had never had a hard time making enemies.

“I don't imagine it to be an issue with you,” she continued, her voice back to being the honeyed, sweet illusion from before. For a brief, ridiculous instant, the Doctor wished she would opt for the glare once more instead. It was much easier to bear than the indifference that any other customer would inspire - she was used to being on the receiving end of the former much more than she'd had time to get used to the latter, after all. "You've been more than helpful so far, despite your— intriguing views about the technology of the future."

 _Oh, I'll show you technology of the future, just you wait._ It was not a sentiment she could voice, but River must have seen it in her eyes all the same. She threw an intrigued look in her general direction and it was soon accompanied by her lips curling into the slightest of smiles; a reluctant acknowledgment of her wordless challenge.

“So,” the Doctor cleared her throat in a futile attempt to cut through the tension that had settled between them. Why did it always have to end up like this? “You mentioned something that's blocking the building from any entrance from any foreign— objects?”

“Correct.” River was all business again, her heels clicking on the shiny floor of the stage as she headed for the far end of it, slipping under the heavy curtain and holding it open just enough for the Doctor to pass through. Now that she was paying attention, it was easy to notice how much taller River was this time around. It was an unusual arrangement for them, but not necessarily one she minded, now that she thought of it. “We'll have to figure out what it is and remove it so your ship can land properly; that's the only thing holding it back, if I had to guess. Which might be good news for your crew, actually; if they're used to being stuck in the limbo between worlds, they'll be fine.”

“They're new, but they can manage.” There wasn't much that could hurt them from the Vortex, at the very least. Not that there wasn't precedent for that too, but the Doctor was doing her best to stay optimistic. It was the only refuge the situation had to offer.

“Good! We'll have more time to investigate, then.” River motioned her inside, towards what the Doctor assumed was the dressing room section. "It's a good thing I set us to arrive as early as I did; that way we can revisit without running into ourselves again by the time we decide to actually come and track your ship down for good. At that point, it'll just be able to land, of course, so it wouldn't take long at all."

“I could handle that part alone, I think.” It was all so delicate; so difficult to navigate without disturbing the ripples in time.

River's step faltered. The suspicious air around her was back. “Is there an issue?”

“No,” the Doctor hurried to say. Too quick. “No, it's just that they're new, like I said. Not entirely used to the idea of— of Earth yet. I could ease them into such a different place slowly, you see, and do it alone so they wouldn’t be as scared.”

“Makes sense,” River nodded. She’d pulled out a torch from somewhere that looked decidedly too advanced when compared to their surroundings. “I haven’t been known to be too good at playing the welcoming role in a new world, I’ll have to admit. It might be best to break it to them gently.”

This time, she simply couldn’t hold the remark back. It was as if River had personally invited her to make that move. From what the Doctor knew about her, that was exactly what had happened. “In all honesty, you don’t look like you break anything to anyone gently, Miss Malone.”

River stopped just abruptly enough in the middle of the corridor for the Doctor to almost trip and fall right into her. As it were, she managed to keep her balance, just barely. Much to her distress, this only made her wife’s calculating smirk grow bigger.

“You sure like that name a lot, don’t you?”

Under the dim, flickering lights above them, River looked entirely her part as a New York private detective. It brought forward a strange sense of déjà-vu that somehow still felt new; like she had experienced this exact, specific sort of excitement before, but it had been under very different circumstances. It didn’t make as much sense as she had hoped that it might.

“Excuse me?”

“Miss Malone,” the woman in question quipped. She was twirling something in her hands, almost too fast for the Doctor to catch on. A moment later she realised, not without a dash of terror, that it was her own screwdriver from approximately seven centuries ago.

“What of it?”

“You can’t keep it out of your mouth is all.” River smiled again and this time, it was all teeth and no honey. “Catchy, isn’t it? Grabs the attention of stray visitors of New York who need a way out. That, plus a few other strays, but that’s a story for another time.”

The Doctor had rarely felt more indignant before. “Stray visitors?” She tried to put as much reprimand as she could into her voice. It wasn’t too difficult. “Are you saying Melody Malone isn’t your real name?”

“Do I look like someone named Melody Malone?”

“To be fair, you do, yeah.”

“I do?” She wasn’t sure if River was more interested or offended. Either way, it was a dangerous mix. “It’s like a name from a book.”

“I mean, that’s just it.” Hadn’t they had a reason to come here? The Doctor’s memory felt too burdened to handle the question just now. “That’s why it fits, I think. You look like someone from a book.”

 _This is dangerous_ , some distant, unfortunately ignored part of her warned, and the Doctor did her very best to push it aside. She knew, of course; had known that she was threading on thin ice ever since she'd identified her detective, but she couldn't force herself to keep quiet. She couldn't pretend that it was just about getting the TARDIS back as safely as possible, either - she'd started talking to her now, _actually_ talking, getting to know her all over again from a light that she'd never been offered before.

 _Like a name from a book_. And wasn't that just what they were all like, really? River and her parents and everything that had happened where they were involved - a story that no one would believe if she ever chose to tell it. And seeing her like this, quietly carrying the duty of what she likely deep down knew was to come, was almost as heartbreaking as their countless last goodbyes. Not a mystery any longer; just River, living the kind life that she'd never really got to see until now. She'd been aware before that she was never bored between their meetings, but the fact that she'd been spending her life - long by most standards and so, so short by the Doctor's - investigating every bit of every species and oddity in the Universe that she could find made it that little bit more unbelievable.

 _You can't do things like this_ , she'd scolded her more times than she could count, terrified for her life even with the knowledge of where she would end up in the end, but she'd never made sure whether River was following those instructions, had she? She had known, in theory, that she tended to do what she liked, but she'd never guessed just how dangerous--

And here it was; that old, ancient anger. The Doctor carefully directed her gaze towards her wife again, desperately trying to return to the appearance of someone politely waiting for a response.

It never really came, or at least, not in the way she had expected it to.

“You couldn't be more wrong, I'm afraid. I'm not sure anyone would ever believe any of this if I told it.”

“Maybe not here and now, but—” more risks, of course, but what was one more little push in the right direction when she'd already gone so far? If she was frank, it would be quite the addition - her past self would eventually tell River about the book anyway, so she wouldn't need any more hints - but who was to say that she couldn't make a compliment or two in the meantime? This was her wife, whether she knew it or not. “I think you'd look great on the cover.”

“Oh, there's no argument about _that_.” River twirled around, her coat brushing the walls in the dramatic fashion she'd doubtlessly intended. “But someone, somewhere, would find a way to arrest me for most of the things I would write, I assure you. In fact, they already did.”

The Doctor did a quick calculation. River must have definitely been out of prison at this point - she'd earned her title as a Professor at some point after that, too, so she'd had time - but Stormcage was apparently still fresh enough in her mind for her to mention it in front of others, even people she didn't know that well.

It reminded her of Krasko, suddenly, and the tattoo scarred into his arm. Not that there was any ground for comparison, really, not with the full knowledge she had of what River's supposed crimes had been, but the prison’s treatment of its inmates had still left her chilled to the bone. River had mentioned what the conditions were, off-handed enough for the Doctor to not get too concerned and try to get her out of there permanently - it wouldn't do to try anything of the sort while River was imprisoned for her murder - but she'd never described anything like this.

“Would you let that stop you?”

“It's never stopped me before, but,” River shrugged, “first time for everything. I’ll need to be on my best behaviour for now, what with all the double- and triple-checks of everything I do.”

She'd stopped in front of a door that looked so inconspicuous that it just had to hide something unthinkable for this day and age and had grabbed the sonic, pushing and twisting its settings in every direction in order to get it to do as she asked. It was a distressing sight - when had she managed to get it and how had she never noticed before? - but the Doctor came closer to watch over her shoulder anyway, fuelled by the kind of curiosity that only ever got them both in trouble.

“That should be easier than it looks right now, I take it?”

“It should be, unless someone's tinkered with it quite a bit.” River leant in, pressing herself against the door as if listening for a signal from inside. “No, nothing that complicated, I think. Just a really intricate mechanism, so the sonic's taking its time.”

Of course it was, if she'd misplaced it in time and space from its owner. The screwdriver had never had anything against River, but the era they'd landed it now had been a problem with anything remotely TARDIS-related ever since Manhattan. Apparently, it had started causing trouble even before that. Why had River never told her any of this? They'd had enough time together, hadn't they? She'd stepped in and done her part and then vanished off the face of the Universe, appearing only when the Doctor specifically called and he'd left her to her grief; had never wondered why she had landed here to begin with. Maybe this was as close to a second chance as she would ever get.

“So it can't be opened?” She would have offered to try and handle it on her own and try with her own sonic, but what would be the point? It was unlikely that it would suddenly manage to override the mechanism if it hadn't already.

“Everything in this century can be opened if you wait long enough,” River scoffed, pulling away from the machine behind what had been disguised as yet another dressing room. “It’s primitive. Something this sophisticated doesn’t belong here, though, and if someone’s installed it, they need to have the means. Not a good sign when you’re looking for a lost spaceship – or when people keep disappearing at certain spots in the entire city.” She turned to her now, her expression as close to apologetic as it ever got. “I’m sorry, Miss Smith, but this might take a while. Not just the door, but whatever – and whoever – is behind it too. My cases often turn out to be more than what meets the eye, I’m afraid.”

“It’s all right,” the Doctor assured her. She’d followed her example and sat down on the floor next to her, one hand reaching out to rest over River’s for reassurance that she’d never asked for but had, historically, had needed on occasion. “I expected something like this, to tell you the truth. I keep—ending up in these sort of places recently, I don’t know why.”

Okay, so the sudden touches might have been a miscalculation on her part. River was eyeing her hand with something between a pleasant surprise and the need to dissect it before managed to get any closer. She was just so used to this; the comfort of her presence and yes, even the physical contact that she’d been so hesitant with back in their early days. It had been for their mutual benefit back then and this reminded her of why exactly she’d made that decision – her wife wasn’t big on unexpected invasion of her personal space unless she’d explicitly welcomed it. It made sense with the life she led and the childhood she’d had, but she’d flinched away from the Doctor’s touch just enough times for her to know better.

It had made them both feel rather helpless back then – River because she hated being vulnerable in front of anyone at all, up to and including the only person in her life that she trusted, and the Doctor because he’d never been too good at letting her know that it didn’t matter; that they didn’t have to talk about it if she didn’t want to but that he was there if she did want to discuss it. Either way, she never had, preferring instead to dedicate her time to prying the Doctor’s secrets out of him one by one. He’d given her everything she’d asked for and the burden of all his history had started gradually getting lighter, finally shared with someone who could understand at least partially.

Now, it seemed, River was willing to do it all over again, although how much of it was genuine concern and how much was scientific fascination was impossible to determine. “You get stranded away from your ship often?”

“Just recently,” the Doctor said, suddenly defensive. “It’s like there’s something— off. We keep getting separated and pulled in different directions all the time and I just don’t _understand_ it.”

River’s mood had turned thoughtful. “So you don’t think it’s a coincidence?”

“Not exactly, but it doesn’t feel like outside interference either.” If there was a way to turn this conversation, more dangerous by the word, in a different direction, now was probably the time. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say the ship has made its mind about what it wants and where I need to go, but that’s ridiculous, of course.”

“You’d be surprised.” River was smiling now; a small, enticing twist of her lips that promised the reveal of a thousand secrets hidden behind it. No wonder she got in trouble quite so often; who would be able to resist _this_? “I’ve seen stranger things out there in the Universe. Sentient ships aren’t quite as ridiculous as you might think – or as inconvenient as they could be, come to think of it.”

The smile had morphed into something that the Doctor had been on the receiving end of far too many times and she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. So this was what River was doing behind her back; picking up strangers with thinly veiled promises of a TARDIS somewhere out there? And, okay, perhaps it was a little unfair to blame her for such a thing when she’d done it so often herself, but their definitions of ‘pick up’ were really rather _different_ and— the Doctor took a deep breath. It wasn’t the time or the place, she reminded herself. It was turning into something like a mantra and it felt similarly meaningless after she’d repeated it enough times.

“And if there’s so much out there, why would you stay here?” It had bothered her for a while now and it was a good change of topic as any. “You said it yourself – they’re primitive; primitive enough that your technology can barely pick up on anything here. So why bother? You _can_ leave if you want to, can’t you?”

“Of course I can.” To an untrained ear, it might have sounded as if she found the statement hilariously obvious, but the Doctor could easily feel the coiled, ecstatic joy that lay beneath. She’d nearly always had the means to get in and out of Stormcage whenever she pleased, but it was different to actually be free; it had to be. “I’m leading an investigation here, actually; it’s been quite useful so far. There’s this— specimen I’m trying to track down. Difficult to pin down and very difficult to dispose of, but if I don’t do it, who will?” River turned to her, the sardonic humour in her eyes somehow gaining an even sharper edge. “No one else could land here even if they tried. It takes a gentler touch than time travellers usually have.” She leant in conspiratorially. “Something’s wrong with time. The creature I’m talking about made it that way, if I had to guess.”

Her hearts were beating fast enough for the Doctor to be able to feel her pulse in her ears; a painful, heavy rhythm that carried a grief old enough to outlast civilisations. _Run_ , she wanted to say, _take my hand and run and never, ever look back. We’ve done this before; we could do it again_. What use would she be as a time traveller if she couldn’t rewrite some of it every now and again? She could get her out of here and never make her write the book that the Doctor would later find in his jacket and _they_ would never land in New York at this time to begin with. She could see the options stretching into infinity in front of her, settling into new shapes, forming new lines, pushing new lives into existence and erasing timelines that wouldn’t find their place anymore; could see the twists and turns of the years that would follow, all the changes that had never been. It would necessarily destroy anything, just _change_ it. It would only be fair, really, after everything they’d been through.

The Universe had never been particularly good at being fair.

“Is that so,” the Doctor said, voice raspier than she’d expected it to be and not quite the question she’d been aiming for. “What exactly is it?”

“I have a few guesses, but it’s nothing intense enough to call the authorities over yet. _Well_ , when I say authorities—” River glanced at her Vortex Manipulator again. It was something of a reflex, the Doctor had noticed, and one she could understand all too well. It still made her stand on edge; thinking of who exactly River could call if she wanted, even if she knew that she wouldn’t – she _hadn’t_. “But never mind that. We’re not in a tight enough spot for this yet. It’s all been all over the place recently, so I thought I’d check it out; set up a place for myself here in case it all blows up in my face. It hasn’t so far, but it never hurts to have something to fall back on.”

“And you’ve been here for how long?” It was just curiosity. The Doctor wasn’t sure why she was trying to convince herself of something she already knew to be an excuse, but she could at least _try_. River had never been particularly surprised when people were interested in her, given how much there was to be interested in.

Now was no exception. “Oh, a month or two. I try to help out in the meantime; might as well make myself useful for the locals. And if it helps me with my own case—” A casual, immodest shrug, as if to motion, _What can I say?_ “You’d be surprised how much of the unexplainable about this city goes back to the same source once you put your mind to connecting it all. It’s probably what happened with you as well, one way or another; there are countless of ways it could work. It’s terrifying, but also rather impressive, I think, how _big_ this actually is. Gives me plenty to work with.”

“And what is _this_ , exactly?”

“You’re alone in all of time and space because your ship vanished into thin air.” Her wife’s overexcited smile, the one she always tended to wear in times of immediate, unbearable danger, had turned gentler now. “No need to scare you with the stuff of nightmares yet, is there?”

“I’m not alone.” She wasn’t supposed to be saying any of this, wasn’t supposed to fall into the trap of familiarity that would never – _could_ never – be returned, but, “There’s you.”

River’s eyes widened, the muted lights making them seem almost glassy with surprise. She’d pulled her hand away, touched in that way that always made her tentative about disappointing people in the long run. It was just about the only predictable thing about her. The Doctor had rarely hated it more. “There’s _only_ me.”

 _You don’t even know me,_ she’d meant to say, but it could be safely ignored for now. “Nothing only about it, Miss Malone.”

Behind them, the locks in the door kept turning.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This PSA might be a little belated if I've already tricked you into clicking on this chapter, but the way I usually write River involves her having a few additional senses regarding time and space and her general position in them. Or, to put it simply, The Baby Does Have A Time Head After All. It's definitely going to be brought up again and it's equal parts helpful and inconvenient, which is always a fun thing to write.  
> Also, yikes, this chapter is another thousand words longer than the previous one. Hopefully this time around I'll actually stick to this standard and be consistent with it, but there was literally no point at which to cut it off without feeling like I've split the chapter in two.  
> Hope you guys enjoy it and, as always, feedback is most welcome!

Despite her rather frequent encounters with them, River had never been particularly fond of surprises. Not that she’d experienced many of this particular kind, mind you, and the terror and relief it brought with itself this time around was almost overwhelming enough for her to let her client see what they would be dealing with. Almost.

“If you could step back, Miss Smith,” she said, voice as collected as it could get given the circumstances. The woman’s presence was a strange, nearly unnoticeable sort of constant; fluttering and nervous and persistent like a hummingbird refusing to leave her alone.

Now she was standing on edge again. “Is it dangerous?”

“That’s yet to be seen, I think.” River turned around to send her most winning smile her way in the fervent hopes that it looked more convincing than it felt. “But it’s mine to deal with. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Seems a little unfair to leave it all to you if it's something that I need to stay away from.”

“It's quite all right, really. I've been in the business for a while, after all.” She had yet to determine what sort of species the woman was - distinctively not human despite her appearance, she was sure even if she'd decided not to scan her out of respect for her desire to keep it secret. It was difficult to argue about whether she had the right to do it when River herself had spent her entire conscious life shying away from any similar questions, up to and including on her application for Luna University. It was a difficult thing to explain and she'd never fooled herself that she was the only - or the first - one to experience it. Perhaps she was the only one of her kind, but her situation definitely wasn't a precedent; not when considering the sheer size of the Universe.

But this? This was a little trickier to handle. Her client had been questioning her from the start, slowly trying to chip away at her resolve to keep her away despite River's efforts. For all her insistence that her crew wasn't used to Earth or humanity, she seemed to have picked up quite a few mannerisms from them.

“Maybe if there's anything I can do—”

“Nothing for now, thank you.” The response was gentle but firm and River steered her away as decisively as possible, making sure to not send her tripping over her ridiculous coat or the heavy curtains behind them. “Unless you're doubting my expertise, that is.”

“Not at all.” Miss Smith's eyes were wide and earnest and this was quite possibly the first actual truth she'd managed to bring out of her. This, plus her reassurances from an hour or so ago why they'd been waiting for the sonic to do its thing and River wasn't entirely sure what to make of them. She'd thought it to be nostalgia at the time; a moment of weakness when faced with just how alone in the world she was right now. She'd almost thought her to just be striving for any contact that the Universe could offer, but when she'd looked at her - really looked, and taken into consideration what she'd seen there - it had felt like much more. It was a ridiculous notion with how little they knew each other and if it had been just attraction, River would have been more than prepared to deal with it in any way that they both saw fit, but as it were, she'd decided to just leave her be. Perhaps all that she actually needed was time to sort through what she felt and why. “I just wouldn't want you to put myself in danger on my behalf is all.”

“It's sweet of you to say that,” River acknowledged almost on autopilot, too used to the sensibilities of this era to remember that she was speaking to a visitor from rather far away, “but putting myself in danger makes up for the majority of my job. It's nothing lethal,” _that I can see_ , “so we should be fine if you just stay put.”

Miss Smith had the distinct air of someone who would have very much liked to protest, but in the end just let out a sigh of profound resignation. “If you think it's for the best,” and then, with a new gleam of hope in her eyes, “but shout if you need me.”

“I most certainly will.” It would help put her mind at ease, and River was impressed enough with how well she was taking in everything here to know that she could rely on her to patch things up if it all got out of hand. She sincerely hoped that they wouldn’t get to that, but things were headed in that direction – had been heading there for a while – and if she never managed to get in contact with the Doctor, then perhaps she could get this woman to reach him and tell him what was wrong. He’d manage well enough from there; he always did, even if it took him a little longer than she preferred.

But it was no use thinking about him now. He would do what he had to if she failed, but River really favoured the possibility of none of that having to happen. She'd always excelled in saving herself, thank you very much, and time travel with anything but her Vortex Manipulator was, if she had to make a guess, a limited option right now. Whether he'd be able to get here on time - or at all - was a train of thought that she usually opted to avoid. It never went in any direction that she appreciated and was, not unlike him, only an option if she wasn't in a particularly murderous mood. The closer she got to the source of all her cases of the last few weeks, the more every internal sensor she had went off, warning her of something vague and dangerous and as of yet unseen that lurked in the back of her mind. In the back of time, almost, like an ocean beast in muddy water - the longer it went ignored, the more powerful it got.

It was driving her insane, just like the majority of the other senses she'd been born with. The language of time forced into a mind that had never been designed to be able to see it had made for quite the frustrating cocktail; one that she'd early on learned how to push to the back when she didn't need it.

It was rather unfortunate that she kept on needing it and even more so that it was going off so much recently but, River thought as she crept back towards the entrance they'd unlocked, her life had never been all that good at having the appropriate timing for whatever she needed at the moment. This case hadn't really been an exception to the rule so far.

It had looked so innocuous at first; nothing but debris that most passersby - or the people who actually worked in the theatre, even - would have considered to be just leftovers lingering around from the relatively recent creation of the building. No one would have given them a second look and in this case, that was the only risk needed. She had to make sure, of course, but as soon as she did, she'd have to tell Miss Smith. There would be no turning back then.

She leant in to take a closer look, taking one of the stones into her hand and turning the sonic to it to scan it just in case. It was funny; she'd never really touched one of them before, too terrified of what would happen if she did. It was the kind of fear that resided deep in every living being with a shred of common sense, and with good reason, but she couldn't afford to indulge it now.

She didn't need to for long, as it happened. River tossed the piece back to the floor and picked up a different one, much more distinctive than the previous one had been, with the clear shape of an eye carved into the surface.

She was staring at the shattered remains of a weeping angel.

***

“We need to get out of here,” River said as soon as she emerged, cutting off Miss Smith’s attempt to peek in once again before she’d even stepped closer, “ _now_. We’ll talk later.”

“I’m sorry, what—”

“We don’t have time for this.” It was a rather ironic statement, she had to admit, given the mystery they were trying to solve, but it was the only thing that she could really say without frightening her even more than she already had to be. “We’ll talk later and I _will_ get you where you need to be, but not here, not now. There’s a more pressing issue at hand.”

This time, her client mercifully followed her, hanging onto River’s arm with some residual reluctance as they headed back for the main stage. They were still alone, at least at a first glance, and she only felt safe enough to stop once they were out in the light again.

“Miss Malone, _what_ is going on?”

Her voice was a little sharper this time; grounding in a way that River hadn’t noticed before. She’d been so soft-spoken, so _quiet_ until now that she’d let this part of her go ignored for the most part, as if the woman hadn’t been rather decisive in the first place; arriving to look for a crew that had vanished into thin air and asking a complete stranger for help that she’d then tried to determine the methods for. Perhaps it had been just a matter of time before she’d snapped.

Whether she was prepared to deal with the reality of what weeping angels were, however, had very little to do with that. People rarely were, no matter how much of the Universe they’d seen so far.

“I was right before,” she said. Her hearts were racing fast enough that she could almost feel them echoing through her fingers where their hands were still clutched into one another; a four-timed beat pressing insistently against her skin like they were getting ready to jump out. She had to get herself under control; there was no knowing whether her client’s species was quite as backward as she’d claimed so far. Lesser people had been tempted to start something she was always prepared to put an end to when they realised they were dealing with what they assumed to be a Gallifreyan. “About the connection between everything that’s been happening in New York.” And she’d known that, _of course_ she’d known it from the very start, but seeing it right in front of her had instilled a much deeper certainty within her; one that she hadn’t been prepared to face quite yet. “The disappearances, all the people and ships and who knows what else being misplaced in time and space— there's a reason behind it. It's not how they usually function, but it feels like there's something countering it this time. It won't be there in the future and it won't be of any help, but it will be and it already has been, and—”

Her client was staring at her with something between horror and pity and it was just about the most infuriating thing River had ever witnessed. The maelstrom in her mind was quite enough on its own without being analysed mentally by people who would never be able to grasp what she was going through in moments such as this one. It wasn't her fault - it was likely quite the sight, as a matter of fact - but that didn't make it any less irritating.

“There's a species,” River started again, her breathing finally starting to fall back into a pattern that she deemed at least partially acceptable. “We call them weeping angels. They're all indistinguishable from solid stone until you look away from them, and then they send you back in time. They feed on the could-have-beens of a person's life; harvest the energy they need to survive from the energy that forced time travel like this produces. And that's supposed to be about it, which is dangerous enough all on its own, of course, but coupled with what's been happening recently— it's like they're evolving; adapting to the time and the place to find all the new ways to exploit everything they can from time itself. From some of the things I've seen— but never mind that.”

Miss Smith's eyes were wider than she'd ever seen them (which was an accomplishment already) and she hadn't uttered a word; perhaps she'd had enough for now. “What I mean is, I've seen a worrying number of people in this city try to make these creatures do their bidding. It's insane, there’s no arguing that, and it's never going to work, but that's humanity for you.” Wonderful, she was starting to sound like _him_ now. It was difficult not to, what with all of the stupidity she'd been forced to witness in the very recent past. “I found one of them destroyed in the backroom. It's likely what caused your ship to disappear and what threw you all the way to Central Park before it was pulled out of this time - it was the safest place to land while also keeping the crew safe, but it wasn't enough.”

And she was back in her own personal Vortex now, surrounded by all the possibilities that she could see and that existed past the edge of her comprehension too. Miss Smith was saying something and she hadn't meant to ignore her, but it was so easy to tune everything out as she slowly got consumed by the list of connections that had been piling up for what felt like a small eternity already.

She’d arrived here because of the angels. It had been a personal investigation, but there’d been more to it too; a visceral _need_ to come here as soon as she’d started trying to decide what her next assignment would be. She’d always had this internal compass of where and when she had to be at certain points in time – another gift from the TARDIS, she’d always assumed – but it had rarely been quite this intense. It was how she’d felt back when she’d been hopping backwards through the Doctor’s timeline, but this had nothing to do with the Doctor, did it? He had no idea where she was right now and had never given her any indication that he’d known her to be here, so it couldn’t be. And if it wasn’t him, then it was another time traveller and that could be _anyone_ , really, especially from the years when humanity had started getting the hang of the more primitive tools of the trade, so that didn’t narrow her suspects down all that much.

“Miss Malone,” her client started again, her brows drawn together into a concerned frown. _There’s nothing to be concerned about_ , River wanted to snap at her, but she’d done nothing to deserve it, _it’s just the way time works, nothing more_ , but the desire to speak was slipping away more and more as she focused all her attention on the angels. Back at her office, she’d compiled a good, old-fashioned drawing board covered with lists of all the unusual activity in the city and the way it connected to them; everything extraordinary that she’d already seen them do. It had been quite a lot, but she could still conjure it into her mind if she focused, almost to the last detail—

“ _Melody_.”

River froze, all her senses immediately latching onto the present again. It wasn’t the tone Madame Kovarian used ( _had_ used back then, it was all over now, but repeating it to herself didn’t make it feel any more true) when she wanted to make sure she was paying attention, but it wasn’t Amy’s usual manner of trying to get her to listen either.

It was somewhere in the middle, as centring as her voice had been the first time when she’d tried to pull her back into focus. It was as jarring as it was welcome to suddenly be tied to a certain place and time and, more specifically, to the _now_ – welcome enough that River didn’t even think to lash out at her for using her first name like she usually would have. Still, she flinched away from her touch, belatedly realising that Miss Smith had cupped her face in her hands, holding on to her as if it would help with what she was trying to achieve. It had rarely, if ever, worked, but she would have congratulated her for trying if she hadn’t been quite so forward.

The regret on the other woman’s face a moment later was almost palpable.

“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching out again as if more touching would somehow help make things better. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to scare you. You just— you looked— overwhelmed.”

“I’m not _scared_.” And really, what kind of detective was scared of her own name? It was a ridiculous notion, and even more so because it was true. In some distant, primitive part of her mind, she’d never fully shaken off the way the name had been shouted at her in so many different settings – in the twentieth and fifty-first century, by friends and foster families and keepers and what she had later realised were her owners. She’d never shaken it off enough to allow anyone to use it apart from all of the three people she valued in her life and choosing it now had been a stupid, stupid idea because she’d never assumed that it would get this _serious_. “I just need time to think this through.”

Her client hadn’t neared her again, clearly tentative of what the consequences could be, but her arms were still outstretched. What exactly she was hoping for, River couldn’t quite determine. “We could go back to the – to _your_ – office if that’ll be any help.”

“It very likely will be, thank you.” The smile on Miss Smith’s face quickly froze at the realisation that the gratitude had been largely for show, but she still stepped closer, reluctant acceptance written all over her features as she let River take her hand and pull her back into the nothingness that the Vortex Manipulator allowed.

***

She’d offered Miss Smith the option to go back to her room and leave her to her own devices as soon as they’d gone back to her part of town, but it had gone largely ignored. Whether she still felt guilty for the reaction that she’d produced or had just hoped that there would be something to help with once again was unclear, but she was trying and for now, she was unobtrusive enough that River had decided to let her be as she wandered around the flat, trying to make them tea in the small kitchen and causing the entire place to go several degrees warmer when she’d left the kettle on for too long. It was a distantly familiar kind of flustered wandering about and it was more relaxing than River would have ever admitted, so she hadn’t complained so far.

It had all been rather unsettling; that was all. She hadn’t meant to succumb to all the TARDIS-related strangeness that always simmered somewhere inside her, but it _had_ been overwhelming even for her, now that she looked back at the situation. There was no way it couldn’t be, no matter how much experience she’d had so far. The destroyed angel and all the little meanings that she could find behind it – both the location and the action itself, like someone had known what they were and had wanted to both get rid of it and make a show out of it, risking the appearance of many, many more in the meantime – were at the front of her mind, had been even back at the hall, and the sudden intrusion of memories that she hadn’t been prepared to handle had taken its toll. She was home now; as close to it as anything ever came. She’d made the place as safe as it could possibly be. There was no way anything or anyone could track her back here. And maybe if she hadn’t spent quite so long having far too much fun with this place and the agency she’d set up, she would have seen this coming as anything more than a curiosity. She was the one to blame, in the end, because this made _sense_.

Still, River didn’t think that anything would have prepared her for Joan Smith.

Who did the woman think she was, meddling with things that were clearly outside of her knowledge? She’d admitted herself that she came from a not so advanced world; what would she understand of the mechanics of time when it was intruding into someone else’s head? River had made an exceptional effort to be angry at her despite the woman’s best intentions and she’d almost managed it by the time she came back to the office, the tea cups she was carrying on top of her tray wobbling slightly as she tried to keep her balance. Her smile was just as unflappable as before, if still slightly apologetic, and River wondered if there was anything in the world that could make her actually step away. So far, she had mainly seen proof of the opposite.

“Bit chilly here, isn’t it?” She said now, settling their tea down in the middle of River’s desk and pushing one of the cups in her general direction. Earl Grey with two sugars and not a hint of milk, just as she liked it, River noted. It _was_ getting rather cold at this time of the evening and she could respect a peace offering when she saw one. “And there’s still a lot we need to go through, if I understand this correctly.”

“You do.” She still wasn’t in a particularly talkative mood, preferring instead to focus on the sheets of paper she’d spread out in front of her. Few things could replace that, really – there was no trail to be followed by her former jailers if she left no trace of herself and she’d dealt with their tracker in her Vortex Manipulator long before they had even thought of releasing her. “This is going to be a long night.”

And she’d had so many hopes for today. She’d thought that they could get her client back home within the next few hours; track down whatever traces her ship had left before it had practically evaporated. She should have known that any angel that was present would have sapped that away, but who, _who_ had got it in there to begin with? It was a theatre hall, after all, and anything resembling props wouldn’t have been too difficult to smuggle in, but it clearly hadn’t been a mistake if it had been destroyed afterwards. She’d had her share of behind the scenes angelic presence recently, but it had been on a much larger scale back then and yet, the image of the kind of person who could have tried to destroy a weeping angel was an entirely new one. It had been either someone terrified or someone very curious – or both. As someone with a penchant of being both, River didn’t particularly enjoy the vision that swam in front of her eyes. Humans with too much time and money in this time period would be the death of, well, not her, likely, but definitely themselves and the more the angels spread around the city, the worse it would get.

But that wasn’t all; not with the direction in which the disappearing people had been moving. Not always in the past and in terribly convenient conditions for them and with the way the angels had been changing recently, it wouldn’t have been that surprising if it hadn’t been so _benevolent_. It was as if something was standing in the middle of the process, pushing it this way and that until it would get to the kind of place that she could reach and that the victim could survive. It had to have been something with at least an ounce of kindness and although, it wasn’t the first time River would have faced kind monsters in her long and complicated life, they’d always made themselves known before.

Miss Smith cleared her throat. It was a start, she supposed, that she’d found subtler ways to announce that she wanted something, but she still didn’t bother looking up until the other woman gathered the courage to speak. “Anything I could help you with?”

“I’m rather used to it by now, so no.” It was always best to be blunt when it came to stopping someone while they were ahead, she’d found, but there was still an unfortunate amount of people who were never deterred by that. Under practically any other circumstance, she would have definitely not minded this specific client being one of them. Terrors from the depths of outer space were entertaining pursuers, but mysterious ship captains from the very same depths were a nice change every once in a while.

“You said that it's going to be a lot of work,” Miss Smith soldiered on, not allowing herself to be discouraged. It would have been an admirable skill to have if only she wasn't so detached from everything that had been happening in the city for months. River let out a defeated sigh. “And it looks like it; you've got a lot of—” She made a vague, sweeping gesture towards the pile of records of eyewitnesses, victims and even individual sightings. If the crystal clear quality of the photos seemed out of place to her, she didn't comment on it. “—this. We could sort through it together if you need a hand.”

“What I need is a comprehensive explanation for why the angels work the way they do, unlike every other time when I’ve encountered them before.” River leant over her desk, deploying the smile that usually made even the friendliest of people step back. The majority of the Universe's population had some kind of survival instinct ingrained within their psyche and it usually went off when put against the fact that she could be rather terrifying if she wanted to be. Only one person had managed to brave that and look past it and she had been impressed enough to want to follow what the history books always seemed to whisper about them by marrying him. “Then, when I inevitably come to the conclusion that they're not the only ones working on it,” she was already well on her way to being sure, but it never hurt to investigate some more, “I'm going to need to know what's actually causing the disruption of their natural process and track it down so I can get to the bottom of this once and for all. Unless you can help with that, then no, I don't need help.”

She had to give it to her: Joan Smith wasn't an easily offended woman - or rather, she was very good at not letting her indignation show, as if she was in the process of getting used to this sort of treatment. Then something flashed in her eyes; recognition mixed with elation, as if she'd just solved her life's most complicated math problem. “I won't get in the way this time,” she said and River wasn't entirely sure which one of them she was trying to convince. “I won't— I'm sorry about earlier. I won't touch anything you don't want me to.” There was a moment of abashed silence. “Including you.”

 _Clever girl._ There was being condescending and there was lingering irritation and River was significantly better at the latter than she was in the former. In her experience, underestimating people never worked in anyone's favour.

“It's not just about earlier.” It was a little bit, but holding a grudge was of no use now. “It's about my working methods. I understand that you worry and it's really very touching, but this is what I do, all day, every day. I know what it's like and I know what to expect, even if it's the unexpected. I don't need a counsellor for that.”

“So I'm just supposed to let you put your life on the line for nothing?”

She seemed altogether too scandalised, considering that she was talking about the well-being of an almost complete stranger whom she would ultimately have to pay for helping her with her struggle to begin with. River briefly wondered if that played a part in it too; if she felt guilty that her detective needed the money enough to risk her continued existence for the sake of a still elusive reward that she was supposed to receive at some point.

“It's not nothing, I assure you.” Perhaps it was best to make that even clearer than she'd previously managed. “Your case and a few of the ones before it— I specialise in angels, if you'd like to know. There are other cases, too - different species that pass by, whether by their own wish or by accident, and want to stay a little longer on this world - but this is what binds it all together. If I wanted to, I could always abandon it all and run. You have nothing to worry about.”

It had started out as a revelation that had then quickly devolved into lies, but then again, River always tended to go back to what was familiar in moments of unexpected emotional pressure. Something had drawn her to this time and place, she reminded herself, and the same something had made her stay. It was an entertaining job - it could be glamorous, even, when she allowed herself to be known by a carefully selected public - but somehow, it had become more than that. She'd long since stopped taking her cases personally, but the idea of another entity interfering to give an undisputed tragedy a better end had drawn her in quicker than she'd seen coming.

“And either way,” she continued, voice a little too determined to be genuine, “it's not about letting me do anything. You're my client, not the other way around. Anything we do here happens on my terms.”

“Right.” The deflated expression was back. River couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for her this time around. It never hurt to remind anyone too pushy who was pulling the strings if they started to forget. “Of course! Your terms. Sounds wonderful.” It very clearly did not, but as long as she didn't keep arguing, River was happy to let the sarcasm slide. It was only human, even if Joan Smith wasn't. “So, in that case, how do we proceed? I need to do something,” she said, already in a hurry at the sight of River's raised eyebrow. She'd never meant to let a _we_ develop anywhere in this arrangement. “ _Please_. Whatever you think might be helpful, even if it's just making more tea, because I'm going to lose my mind if you try to send me to my room one more time.”

 _That's not what I was doing_ , River would have liked to protest, _you're not a child_ , but it would have likely been futile, seeing as it was the truth.

“All right,” she said in the end, the acceptance more resigned than she would have liked to acknowledge. “If that’s what you want, then here.” She pushed the most intimidating haphazard pile of paper on the desk in Miss Smith’s general direction. “They’re eyewitness reports from the last six months of sort. Sort through them until they’re in order and see if you can spot some kind of pattern in the victims, object that went missing, their background, their way of seeing the phenomenon – anything at all. I’ll go through the spots they started in and where they ended up, if anywhere, and see if I can figure out the processes behind it. How about that?” All she received in response was a short, eager nod. “Good. Better get started; there’s been plenty of activity recently. I hope you’re used to people panicking, because that’s all I’ve managed to write down out of them.”

One could always rely on subtly intimidating off-world intruders to leave a trail of chaos – being one herself, she’d definitely know. Why Miss Smith wanted anything at all to do with it was a different question entirely and River didn’t feel prepared to ask it just now. Instead, she managed a quick smile in return to yet another, “Brilliant!” and turned her attention to the task at hand.

She was getting good at working on monsters, at least; one step closer to the rest of River’s world. It would be a crime to let it happen, but there was little she could do to stop it now – and little willpower to do it with. She would have to let her go in the end, of course. There were still parts of this that River would absolutely need to face alone, she was already sure – but if she wanted to stay, then it was perhaps forgivable to let it happen just this once.


	6. decorations of red on a green Christmas tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas approaches in the Malone-Smith household.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't an actual chapter - as in, it doesn't follow the plot in the same timeline but takes place in a sort of pocket within the story. It's more of a Christmas special and I'd apologise for it, only I feel no regret at all.  
> Really, I just had a thought of writing a little something short and cute and, for once, angst-free(ish) in this 'verse and posting it as a standalone fic would have taken far too much explanation to anyone who hadn't read this story, so I just decided to drop it here instead; hopefully it's enjoyable as is, since it _is_ a few hours before Christmas Eve and I haven't had much time to edit. Title taken from Elvis Presley's _[Blue Christmas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QipqXel5G4g)_ , which felt surprisingly apt. Feedback is, as always, appreciated.  
> Merry Christmas, everyone!

It was a cold winter. River had clearly been prepared for it – not much of a surprise, given her habit of taking the occasional hints from the future – but the Doctor had been less than pleased at first, especially when she’d realised that her options varied between borrowing her wife’s clothes or her money. Neither seemed like a particularly inviting option and for the first time in recent memory, she wished she had developed the habit to occasionally keep money on her person without relying on the TARDIS to think them into existence for her. It would have been rather helpful when she’d first got stranded, although she held no illusions that it would have lasted until now.

Therefore, borrowing from River it was. Money rather than clothes, she’d quickly decided once she’d actually attempted to wear anything that had a place in her wife’s wardrobe. It had been a struggle at first despite the knowledge that River held money at about the same level of importance as she herself did, and it had been even more irritating when paired with the lack of progress on getting her TARDIS back. Still, soon enough, she’d been provided with a distraction, early in the morning in the middle of December, when she’d woken up to realise that it had snowed overnight.

Really, it couldn’t _not_ be a game changer. River had been nowhere near as thrilled – the weather tended to mess with her equipment – but she’d let herself be harassed into buying a Christmas tree and the ornaments to go with it, letting her supposedly temporary roommate entertain herself with it while she entertained other clients. The Doctor had taken her blanket permission more seriously than it had likely been intended and had drowned River’s rather claustrophobic flat with as much decoration as possible. It made the already stark contrast between their living space and River’s small, crowded office even more obvious, but neither of them necessarily minded – it was nice to have something at least halfway welcoming to come home to for once, even if her wife would never say it out loud.

Presents were another thing she’d been thinking about recently despite her continuing lack of finances and the idea had only got more persistent when she’d spotted River smuggling a bulky package on her way home from one of her mysterious outings around the city. It was naive to think that it was meant for her – she was supposed to be a client like any other, after all – but her wife wasn’t exactly surrounded by people in this decade and on the off-chance that it _was_ , in fact, a present, she didn’t think that she’d be able to bear not giving her anything in return.

Soon enough, of course, the Doctor had bigger things to worry about. River’s suspicions about the way the snow interfered with her tech proved to be true. Everything outside was wet and slippery and _cold_ and whatever equipment from the future she’d managed to smuggle here didn’t fare too well in it. Eventually, it had driven her to distraction and she’d limited their investigation back indoors while making calls this way and that in the vague direction of anyone she knew who could have the resources she needed. _I know a guy_ , she’d said when the Doctor had raised an eyebrow to one of her more outlandish ideas, and that was how they’d ended up here – back in River’s office, with the Doctor sorting through eyewitness accounts while River herself leant back in her chair, one of her heels scraping the shiny surface in front of her once she’d propped her feet on the desk. It was the very picture of comfort and the Doctor found herself wishing fervently for the feeling to be somehow contagious. She’d need it if her suspicions about who her wife was calling were correct. As if the strain that this time and place was putting on the Universe wasn’t enough, she thought in dismay. The last thing she needed was a brush with herself and yet another potential paradox.

Sadly, it couldn’t be avoided, or so River had said.

“Yes, yes,” she was nodding along now, her expression alight with amusement despite the eye roll that followed. Even that was laced with fondness, the Doctor couldn’t help but notice with a pang that she’d tried to suppress quite a few times by now. “It’s primitive. I _know_. But I really need the parts; does she have them?”

 _She’s not a factory for time travel experiments, you know_ , the Doctor said on the other end of the line and the Doctor sitting across the desk perked up from the daze she’d fallen into during the last few hours. She couldn’t remember this conversation, she realised suddenly. Did it count as enough of an interference with her own timeline for her to forget? _Yes, okay, probably, but it’s going to be really unpredictable. I could always just come to you_.

“Not right now you can’t.” The temporal disturbances had got far too strong recently and they’d both been able to feel it. Getting here via the TARDIS would probably already be impossible, if the Doctor had to guess. “The TAR— she can find me; just find the resonance synthesizer.” Her grin widened as she absently flipped through the photos scattered across the desk, suddenly unperturbed by the ghastly scenes some of them portrayed. “Wouldn’t want to keep me waiting. It’s Christmas where I am.”

 _Oh, is that so?_ Her own voice from about two incarnations ago had dropped even more considerably in pitch and the Doctor suppressed a sigh. She’d been down this road too many times in the past not to know where exactly this was going even if she didn’t have the memories of this particular encounter to back it up. _Are you **sure** I can’t just home in on your signal? Bit unfair if you’re the only one getting presents._

“Who said I’m not getting you anything?”

“Miss Malone—” the Doctor decided to interfere, to no avail. River gave her a quick, apologetic smile. _In a minute_ , she mouthed at her before straightening up a little in her place. She’d been the one to say that time was of essence, but it’d clearly all flown out of the window for the time being.

 _Are you? Getting me anything, that is?_ River made a sound of acknowledgment; a sure way to prompt more questions. _Are you—_ he faltered for a moment and the Doctor could recognise the impatience in her own tone, _those repairs you’re doing. How critical are they?_

River eyed the piles of case-related material that towered over them both, then directed her attention towards the phone on the desk and apparently came to a decision. _Please, no_ , the Doctor begged her silently, but it was already too late – she’d detached a small earpiece from the cord and attached it to herself before getting to her feet. “Not very.” Her voice was more innocent than she’d ever actually been in her life. “Did you need something?”

Before the Doctor could do anything to get her to reconsider, River had disappeared into her room and slammed the door shut.

 _Now, that just won’t do_. Under any other circumstances she would have felt discouraged, the Doctor thought, but it wasn’t that this time around; no, whether she’d meant to or not, she’d actually managed to _inspire_ herself. And if she could solve their spare parts-related crisis and think of a present at the same time, well— the Doctor chanced a look at River’s closed bedroom door (from previous experience, it would be a while) and then grabbed the keys for the garage before she could change her mind. If she could solve this much and be more honest with her wife than she had been able to afford since coming here, it would be more than enough for now.

***

River tried to rub the sleep away from her eyes as she took in the sight in front of her yet again in a vain attempt to make sense of it. Granted, Miss Smith’s delighted exclamation upon finding a coat – identical to her own, only far thicker and lined with fur – under the tree was a definite distraction, but it didn’t change the reality of her own present.

The resonance synthesizer, carefully wrapped in a bright red paper covered in bells in green and gold, was resting right on top of a temporal microfilament splitter that she hadn’t even bothered to ask about, well aware of the TARDIS’s limits with the manipulation of living matter. There was no wrapping to go with this one and that, along with the slight shift in the handwriting on the cards, was the only difference she could find in the otherwise identical greetings.

_Think I got it just in time. I’d ask how those repairs are going, but I already know the answer: brilliant. See you on the flip side. Sometime soon, I hope._

_Merry Christmas,_

_the Doctor._


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First chapter (and AO3 post of any kind) for the 2019! Happy belated New Year everyone! Hope it's been a great one so far.  
> So, yes, here's the next regular chapter. I apologise for the delay; there were quite a few gift fics to dish out around Christmas and now things should ease back into rhythm, I hope. Some exposition and relationship development in this one - it seemed inevitable to wait a bit before jumping straight to action, considering that one of the two characters in this fic had the time travel equivalent of a mental breakdown just a few hours ago.  
> Hope you enjoy it and, as always, feedback is most welcome!

The sharp streetlight seeping through the less than pristine windows of the Angel Detective Agency and its contrast to the darkness that otherwise reigned around her was just about the only thing keeping the Doctor awake as the night stretched on. At first, it had been easy – she’d been busy with her work if all too quickly distracted every time River made a remark to herself or tossed something in the bin by her desk if she found it to be unnecessary. She’d smoothly returned to the collected exterior from before and if she’d been a lesser being, the Doctor was sure that it would have fooled her, but as it were, she had still been able to see the frantic energy that prompted her wife’s every move; the time and possibilities that had taken over her mind still lurking at the edges of her consciousness.

In the end, she’d essentially passed out mid-investigation at about three in the morning. In the many, many years they’d known each other, the Doctor had never once seen her fall asleep voluntarily and now had been no exception; if anything, she could bet that River hadn’t even realised how exhausted she’d been while she’d been fighting to stay awake just a while longer. She had been unusually agitated right before that, but the Doctor hadn’t had the heart to question why – it was a surer way than any other to keep her distracted from the sleep she’d so clearly needed. So she’d focused on her own supposed assignment, all too eager to fix this as soon as possible.

Or at least, she had been – it was the desperation to get home that had driven her to the agency of a complete stranger who was unlikely to be able to help her in any way. But now, sitting here, sorting through River’s paperwork, watching her get her well-earned rest on top of half of their evidence, the idea of home had changed one more time. _Nothing ever disappears_ , River had said back in Central Park, _but it gets misplaced sometimes_. Perhaps that had been misplaced too – her longing for the time on her ship and her friends but without the woman on the opposite side of the desk had melted away somewhat, leaving pure concern and the hint of nostalgia behind. For all of River’s reassurances, there was a good chance that they wouldn’t be able to do it and what then? The TARDIS would take care of everyone, but that wasn’t the _point_. If they were stuck somewhere just outside of this time and place, she’d trapped them forever because of an experiment. It had been nothing but a whimsical attempt to return to a city that was better left ignored and she could have just told them, she supposed; could have taken them to one of the many New New Yorks instead to show them what a proper attempt at a restoration of the ancient human cities of Earth looked like, but it would have felt too much like purposeful evading. Sooner or later, they’d notice and the Doctor wasn’t sure that she’d be able to handle it.

It was, of course, far from the only issue. She’d been stuck on the slow path before, but this was the worst possible time for it – she was constantly on the edge of overstaying her welcome and running into herself and eventually fracturing the already fragile lines that their relationship had wrapped around all of time and space. River had been the one to tell her, all those years ago, that it was time to step back into the shadows, but she’d made no such effort of her own. They’d made themselves too important to the Universe’s continued existence for her to jeopardise it, or she’d have done it ages ago.

 _Not those times, not one line_. She’d made it sound like the Doctor had a _choice_ and the reveal of the opposite had been slow and bitter – still was, centuries upon centuries later. _Don’t you dare_. But she would have, so many times, if she hadn’t known that the person she’d done it for would have resented her for the rest of their doubtlessly short, splintered existence.

For the first time in what felt like years even in her non-linear days, the Doctor reached for the diary tucked away in her coat’s pocket.

It would have been so easy. She dragged a fingertip over the rough, time-worn cover and imagined it as relatively new and only halfway full as she’d seen it in River’s hands just this morning. She had done it so many times; taken her by the hand and told her to run and never look back until they were safe. It had always been easy because the stakes hadn’t been quite so high, but the more she looked back, the easier it was to see that she’d never been able to save her when it mattered. Even back when Amy and Rory had been trying to stay in touch, asking about a child the Doctor had known they would never see again, the flow of time had had him by the throat and even if he’d wanted to (and a part of him had, rather desperately, while the rest of him had flinched away from the possibility of losing her in the only way he’d known her until then), he couldn’t have saved her. She had singlehandedly stopped him from doing it back in the Library, as well as at Darillium when he’d tried to bargain for some more of their time together once their night had neared its end because she’d remembered his first lesson better than he had at that point. _Never run when you’re scared_. She’d always been excellent at running away, but staying when it mattered – keeping history as true to memory as she could – was something she was just as talented in.

It made sense, the Doctor supposed. If she’d had her freedom taken away in as many ways and as many times as River had, she would have liked to organise every little detail of the rest of her life on her own as well. Forcing it all to follow a different path would have been worse than all the unforgivable things that River had already forgiven her combined.

Really, she hadn’t had a choice in the matter from the start. The Doctor chanced another look in her wife’s direction – still asleep, fingers clutching her old screwdriver in her fist like it was a weapon – and pulled the diary out of the depths of her coat. She’d never dared to read it. Even back before and after Manhattan, when they’d been linear and then afterwards on Darillium, River had snatched it away every time and it had always made him wonder; what she could possibly hide at this point. There were no more secrets left between them on her side and it had taken a while for the answer to sink in, shortly after Nardole had come to scold him through echoes from her general direction – it was a _diary_. Not a spotter’s guide, not a quick recording of all their meetings so that they could keep track of each other; just a personal version of the story they'd pieced together over the years.

The Doctor hadn't insisted after that and had never really opened it after he'd lost her for good; it had never felt right, even back at the very start when Donna had wanted to know the truth of her own future. It had shifted from genuine caution into something that resembled reverence too much for her own good and she could never, ever let it slip in front of River; could never even reach for it when they were together. This brief moment of respite had proved to be more therapeutic than she'd expected it to be.

With another quick check to make sure that River was still out of it, the Doctor turned the night light off and headed for her own room. She wouldn't get much - or any - sleep, she suspected, but it was the only escape plan that she could think of. For decades, she'd thought that she'd already endured the worst of losing River. The crushing, stifling pain and the loneliness that had followed had been the only proof she'd needed, but now, it was easy to see how wrong she'd been. It had been a failure of imagination, she supposed; not realising that if saying goodbye to her on her way to her death had nearly destroyed her, then seeing her here, curious and slightly lost and so very _alive_ , might just have been the last push she'd be able to take.

***

Much to the Doctor's dismay, the pain burning its way under her skin since the night before hadn't ceased by the next morning. River had been the one to wake her up, her ceaseless onslaught on the Doctor’s bedroom door forcing her out of the tangled-up horror of the nightmare she'd been entertaining until then, and she'd been brought fully back to consciousness by the sight that had greeted her once she'd opened the door.

“Good! You're up,” River said, tone far too innocent for someone who had likely managed to rouse the entire neighbourhood by now. She looked like she’d been up for at least an hour and her cheery tone was more than the Doctor thought she could handle just now. “I thought of another place we could go. It might not get us to your ship quite as fast, but it'll help with pinning down the pattern that the Angels are making. There was a loose thread I left behind before— but never mind that. I'm going to need you to dress up. Or, now that I think about it,” she added at the doubtlessly incredulous grimace the Doctor's face had morphed into, “just put on what you usually wear and button up your coat. It'll have to do.”

“Thank you.” River herself had done much more than _button up her coat_ and what little of her clothing actually _was_ buttoned was strategic enough that the Doctor could tell that she was just as prepared to go into battle as she had been with her military uniform the other day. It was one of her wife's many specialities, she knew, but it was still somewhat startling given the weather outside - the muted gold of River's dress was brighter than the morning sun and it was one of her more anachronistic choices since the Doctor had arrived, although it was difficult to say whether it leant more towards the past or the future. She’d done her hair up again, taming it into the sleek, heavy curls that seemed rather popular at this time, at least with most of the movie stars. It dawned on her, then, what she’d done – it was another one of those disguises that weren’t really all that mandatory but that River still paid attention to because she enjoyed them far too much. “Does this have to do with— sorry, what was it— the ‘artistic sector of the city’?” The Doctor ventured, inordinately pleased by the surprised but approving smile that lit up River’s face.

“That’s exactly it. I’d like to investigate some more if possible in the light of our recent discoveries. It could be a one woman job if I tried, but,” a quick, appraising glance, “it doesn’t have to be. And I doubt you’d like to miss it.”

“Not at all,” the Doctor hurried to say. It hadn’t been quite so easy to sway her so far, so she was going to take any chance she could get. “I’d like to help.”

“Glad to hear that.” The beam from before had morphed into a rather unsettling grin. The Doctor resisted the temptation to take a step back, but knew better than to fight a losing fight – whatever River had just thought of, she’d make sure to follow through. “We’ll just need a few— alterations first.”

***

 _Never again_ , the Doctor swore as she dragged herself to the passenger seat of River’s car (they were going for inconspicuous today, it seemed, although the vehicle was still most definitely stolen). It didn’t matter how linear or non-linear they were, she’d never once trust River where anything appearance-related was concerned.

It was a lie, of course, from any and every point of view, and the reluctant admission of that fact didn’t make her indignation lessen in the slightest. She’d sat quietly – well, as quietly as she’d been able to force herself to be – while River had launched into an impromptu speech about the film studio they were preparing to visit and, without giving her the opportunity to protest, she’d decided to help her blend in.

The promise (threat, really) had sounded suspicious enough, but even more so once the Doctor had realised that it was a code expression for her wife doing her very best to doll her up. It hadn’t gone quite as far as she’d been afraid it would – _everything here would look ridiculous on you, dear_ , River had declared after one look into her own wardrobe, _but I can improvise_ – and it’d still managed to make her nearly unrecognisable.

She’d somehow turned her coat into a trench coat, the Doctor noted now as she fiddled with the too-tight belt layered on top of it, and then she’d played with her hair until it was pinned back on one side and tickling her face in small, stiff shiny waves on the other. She’d insisted that it was a perfectly simple process, but the Doctor hadn’t been fooled – there _had_ to be alien tech involved. There was no way her wife inflicted this upon herself every single day without manipulating it into existence and she voiced her doubt soon enough.

“It’s not that much of a hassle, really,” River assured her, the small, satisfied smile from before still curling her lips. “I enjoy it. And now no one’s going to give you a second look. _Well_ ,” she amended, the fleeting glance her general direction making the Doctor squirm as much as it had in her last few bodies – pleasure mixed with a little bit of apprehension. It was ridiculous, of course, and River couldn’t hold her up to a set standard when she didn’t know who she was, but it didn’t seem to matter. “Not in the way we should be afraid of, at least. Plenty of people would notice you either way, but that’s got nothing to do with me.”

That odd flutter had risen in her hearts again and, despite her better judgement, the Doctor leant in closer to the driver’s seat and pulled the sun visor down to familiarise herself with the changes she could see in the small mirror. River’s _alterations_ hadn’t been too dramatic – just a little makeup around her eyes that felt like it had stuck to her eyelids as soon as it had dried. It hadn’t changed much, or at least nothing that she could put her finger on, but it would definitely serve to make her fit in a little better. And if it was something River loved indulging in, then, well, “I suppose it’s not so bad.”

“Of course it isn’t; I’m the one who did it.” River had turned yet another corner and, with it, had taken another plunge deeper into the outskirts of the city. The Doctor had long since given up trying to guess what their final destination was apart from _a film studio_ , but she’d still been trying to memorise the way there, not entirely successfully. “I’ve spent a while in this time period even before setting up the agency. Always liked it. The style, that is, not the poverty, although that’s been getting a little more bearable these days. Well, as good as it ever gets in this city.”

The Doctor sank back into her seat as quickly as physically possible. She didn’t want to push, but River had evaded the question so many times before and she’d always been better at sharing what bothered her when she thought people didn’t care. The Doctor had managed to pry some of the stories of her earlier years out of her, but it had been a painstaking process. “Is this where you grew up?”

“Yes and no.” Even through the champagne-coloured satin of her gloves, it was easy to see the tension in River’s grip on the steering wheel. “It’s— complicated. Nothing for you to worry about,” she hurried to add, as if somehow afraid that what little she had shared would ruin her reputation. The Doctor suppressed a smile. _She has a good heart, too, I think, not that you would know it_ , her guide to River’s services had told her, but at this point, anyone who had used said services had likely been able to see that despite her detective’s best efforts. How could they not? “Where I am now is much better, I can assure you.”

“You mean your office.” The Doctor had thought it to be a dark, crowded little place when she’d first visited, but for River, there must have been comfort in crowded after decades of barely being allowed any personal possessions. That, plus the flat attached to it were exactly the kind of fascinating chaos that the Doctor had always imagined River’s home to be – any home she could have outside of the TARDIS, that was.

“That, among other things. I never really forgot, though, how miserable this place can be when you’re alone and desperate for help.” River’s smile had turned sardonic. “It’s large and noisy and it scared me to death back then. No wonder I ended up here for this project.”

“You think the Weeping Angels are a _project_?” She wasn’t supposed to know how terrifying they were, the Doctor reminded herself – she only had River’s short description to go by – but she’d somehow become upset enough to forget what her script had been supposed to be.

“That’s what they were meant to be at first, but I guess that’s changed. Again.” River lingered at the crossroad they’d ended up at and then took a steep turn left. The Doctor clung to the handle of the door, more to ground herself into where and when they were than to keep herself steady through her wife’s questionable driving habits. “Time distortions can be a funny thing when you first encounter them somewhere; it’s like an itch that you just can’t get rid of. I couldn’t resist. But it’s got worse since then and I’m not sure— sometimes it’s just so easy to dip into time and determine the general _air_ of all the possible outcomes, but here—”

“City making things difficult?” She could almost see the cogs of River’s mind turning, scattering in every direction possible in less than an instant. The outbursts from the theatre yesterday had startled her, but it had been easy enough to handle; she wouldn’t be able to control it while she was driving.

“Not the city; it’s _them_.” River chanced a glance in her direction. “It’s the Angels that throw me off. It makes sense – I’m a bit of a freak of nature to them, I’d guess, can’t imagine how they’d feed on _my_ future of all people – but it bothers me. It’s all connected one way or another, but _how_? Suppose I’ll have to wait some more to find out. At least I know I’m not going to end up stuck here.”

Coming from anyone else, it would have been insensitive given the Doctor’s situation, but, “How?” she asked, starved for whatever little piece of additional information she could claw out even if she already knew that River was right. “Accidents happen all the time here. How can you be sure?”

“I happen to the accidents, not vice versa, remember? Plus,” she continued when the Doctor kept her stubborn silence, “it’s not like this Universe would ever let me die on Earth.” It was one of those things she tended to say sometimes; a joke except not really, a deep conviction buried in a cryptic remark. “There’s someone out there— He wouldn’t let me die on Earth, either. Even if there’s nothing else certain in this world, I can always rely on that.”

She’d got that right, at least. Without any palpable change around them, the car suddenly felt far too small for the Doctor to be able to draw in a breath. “Dying on Earth,” she echoed, voice tight as she were about to cry. Perhaps that was the case – she hadn’t got around to recognising the symptoms for this body yet. “Would it really be so bad?”

“Yes.” She hadn’t had to think about it, it appeared. Or she had, and she’d given it far too much thought already. “Look around you, Miss Smith. All of time and space, every single place you can imagine, and this is the best this city has to offer. Who would want to be stuck on the slow path _here_?”

This particular remark had stung far more than the previous one and River had no way of knowing how accusing it would sound without the weight it would have later and yet _, It’s not the same_ , the Doctor reminded herself, _she’s River, she’s nothing like her parents, they’ve always had an easier time finding happiness_ , but there was no point in disagreeing – not when the Doctor had always been terrified of the exact same thing.

***

By the time they’d reached their destination, River’s fatalistic mood had reached its usual, and far more bearable, levels and the Doctor had used her temporary distraction to study her some more. She’d always been rather unpredictable, her River, even on the best of days. It had always felt like a mix of nature and nurture and just a sliver of time itself, but she wasn’t quite sure about the rations of each ingredient anymore.

Perhaps it really was just the Angels getting to River’s head more she realised, but she was even more aware of the twists and turns of the Universe now than she usually would have been. Her head had never failed to be a chaotic place to live in – the Doctor had seen it firsthand through the physic link they’d sometimes established enough times to know for sure – but it had never been quite so bad as she described it to be this time. And considering what was coming, it was only bound to get worse. If they still hadn’t managed to get the TARDIS back before the moment when he and the Ponds would start showing up, River would sense it, there was no doubt about it now, and the fractures along the skin of time and space would never be able to heal from the damage that would be left. Worse than that, the Doctor would face precisely the same fate and at this point, it would definitely be more heartbreak than she’d be able to take.

But then again, who knew? River had that ability, it seemed; stretching the Doctor’s grief out with her bigger-on-the-inside life and her endless wandering around every star and planet to her hearts’s content. She’d always managed to make space for herself everywhere she went and the Doctor’s own hearts had never been an exception. The TARDIS must have sent her here as a reminder, she supposed, as if she didn’t have enough of those already whenever she dipped into her own memories. Why would anything change now?

She only realised that she’d slammed the car’s door shut with a little more strength than necessary when River’s curious gaze caught her eye. “Everything all right?” She ventured tentatively. The Doctor offered a sharp nod in return, fully aware of how unfair she was being – here, now, her wife had been nothing but helpful. Although, of course, it would have been unfair to blame her even out of the time and place they currently inhabited. She was always just _there_ , racing her way through life in the only manner she’d ever known, and it wasn’t her fault that the Doctor had ended up loving her quite so much.

“It’s fine.” She felt awfully exposed all of a sudden. They were standing in front of a high metal gate and a fence that stretched on for what seemed like miles – the only things separating them from the rows of warehouses in the field beyond and the identical buildings and sets right behind their backs. It didn’t look quite as glamorous as she’d expected it to, but oddly enough, they _did_ look like they belonged here. The people coming in and out of the several studios around them had opted for a similar style. River had definitely found a way to ingrain herself into the atmosphere, just like usual, and now that she pulled her closer by the arm and fished the sonic out of her trench coat to force the door to open despite the obvious lack of security to man the entrance, the Doctor realised with a start that she’d successfully done the same to her too. Here she was, away from everything even remotely familiar with the exception of her wife, and River had done her very best to make her part of a world that she’d have to survive in for the time being.

Well. Turnabout was fair play, she supposed.

She didn’t have long to dwell on that particular train of thought before River tugged her along through the main entrance. It had been a clever enough manoeuvre for the Doctor to wonder just how many times she’d been here already – one moment she’d been standing aimlessly among the half-built sets that cluttered the open space around them and in the next she had disappeared behind the corner in a swirl of her skirts, self-assured enough in what she was doing that no one would second guess her right to be here despite the obviously abandoned state of her destination. Humans were ready to turn a blind eye to just about anything as long as you were confident about it, but without the psychic paper that usually helped the Doctor along, River had to make do with her natural charms and a tube of that lipstick of hers.

Thinking of which...

“What happened to this place?”

River grimaced. It was an answer enough – or it would have been if the Doctor had had the opportunity to talk to her openly – but she waited for her to voice it all the same.

“I’d prefer not to go into that.”

“Then I’d prefer not to go into _that_.” The Doctor nodded towards the nearest warehouse. “You said there was something wrong here. _The kiss of an Angel_. Whatever that is, if it’s the same thing as it was back at that hall, but completely intact, it could be dangerous. And if you took them down, then someone might definitely want revenge—”

“Oh, they always do, dear.” River had left the sonic back in her pocket in favour of a torchlight that was really better off away from the eyes of civilians. The fact that they’d need it in broad daylight was more than slightly unnerving. “Doesn’t mean they’ll get it. Trust me, there’s nothing left here. There was really only one thing I left unsolved and now must be the time for it.” River’s smile would have been infectious if the circumstances hadn’t been what they were. “I understand if it’s intimidating. You can stay here if you like.”

“Miss Malone,” the Doctor started, trying to school her voice into its strictest version possible, but when had that ever really _worked_? Only one of her faces had managed it and he was time-locked away from this place for now. “I’m not worried about _myself_ here. I thought we talked about unnecessary dangers.”

The look River gave her in return was withering enough to almost make her turn away, but her wife’s recklessness had lit up something inside her; had made her stand her ground where Joan Smith – or any other being in their right mind – would have budged. “And _I_ thought we talked about which one of us was the client.”

“We did.” They’d had a rule about touching and the Doctor hadn’t forgotten, but really, River had started it first and she couldn’t _not_ use her grip on her wrist to pull her hand lower; intertwine their fingers and hold on as tightly as the limitations of River’s knowledge would allow. She could feel the double beat of River’s hearts underneath her fingertips and she was one wrong move away from the sensation going both ways, but she couldn’t pull away when she’d finally made her _listen_. It was worth it for the startled, if not a little outraged, spark in those green eyes. “And I’m not going back on my word, I promise, but— what _happened_ here?”

River was at the edge of her patience; a sure sign that she was about to give in. “Why does it matter so much?”

“Because I’d like to know what you’ve been through.” Just for this, she could be honest. It was only an instant, but enough for the Doctor to feel more relieved than she had been at any fleeting mention of recovering her TARDIS. “And what you’re about to go against now.”

“It’s a long story,” River warned. She hadn’t flinched away from her touch this time and even if she hadn’t done anything to reciprocate either, the Doctor was ready to count it as a victory. “And not a very pretty one.”

“I’d still like to hear it.”

“All right.” River pulled her by the hand and the Doctor let her, all too willing to follow her now that she’d been given at least the impression of a balance in the fragile relationship they’d established. “There’s not really much to tell, if you go by the evidence left behind. It’s nothing but dust now.”

“Most of history is,” the Doctor said, picking her step up a little until she was by River’s side again, “doesn’t make it unimportant.”

River’s laughter, when it came, was just on the verge of incredulous. If there was anyone used to everything falling apart and turning to dust right before them, it was her. She’d turned it into a living, eventually, but had never really lost the passion for watching it happen in real time even if it made her hearts ache. It was yet another painfully familiar thing for the Doctor to face when they looked into each other’s minds and the reminder that she couldn’t do it now – to show sympathy if nothing else – was just as painful. “You don’t even know how right you are about that, Miss Smith.”

 _I do_ , the Doctor thought, and this time, she couldn’t even manage the resentment from before. _You taught me a long time ago._


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, folks! Me again. This story is inching ever so slowly towards a conclusion and I thought it'd be a good time to a) get River's POV back in the game and have her deal with some more time weirdness and b) start tying things together here and there. There's still at least about four more chapters left, I think, and I'm still hesitant enough about it to not put a definite number up there in the chapter section, so I'm still going with the flow for now.
> 
> Regarding the story River tells in this chapter: my fatal flaw when it comes to _Doctor Who_ fanfic is assuming that everyone has read some of the tie-in novels, which is most definitely not the case. The one strongly referenced here is _The Angel's Kiss_ by ~~Justin Richards~~ Melody Malone. It functions as a prequel to _The Angels Take Manhattan_ and the version of it that River recounts here is pretty much the entire plot of it, just extremely condensed. I'd definitely recommend it; it's a fun read, even if I wish it'd dwelled into River's character just a little further. Attempts to do so have been done below.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it and, as always, feedback is most welcome!

Somewhere along the way, something about the most likely course of events had shifted.

It was hard to determine what it was; what decision had prompted it. Perhaps it was the mere action of going back to Starlight – the next step River would have taken about the Angels if it hadn’t been for Miss Smith’s case would have been contacting the only man in the city with a sick enough fascination with the unknown to be interested in stealing one. She hadn’t intended to come anywhere near this place again and it wouldn’t have been too surprising if that was the reason she could feel the heavy, copper-like taste of shifting time on her tongue. It was either that or the fact that the place sent chills down her spine without any supernatural help at all at this point and it would have been so much easier to tell which one it was if the Doctor had been here, really, as much as she’d have liked to handle it on her own.

A long time ago, back when they’d first established a link between each other’s minds – not an easy task, considering how complicated the workings of them both tended to be – he’d turned out to be the one fixed point in the middle of the chaos in her head; the eye of the storm that everything else raced around. There was something awfully reassuring about having just one certain thing in a universe that never stopped morphing into something new. It figured she’d end up locked away from that possibility when she needed it the most, but it was no good wasting more time on the idea now – _now_ , time was still shifting.

Her client had yet to let go of her arm. If she hadn’t known better, River would have thought that she was afraid and accepted it as a reasonable reaction to their surroundings, but she hadn’t shown any signs of that yet – not apart from being afraid _for her_ , that was. It had all been rather puzzling so far and River suspected that she would have caught on to the source behind it much earlier if it hadn’t been for Miss Smith’s dire circumstances and the highly unlikely possibility of any other motives.

It made a certain amount of sense, she supposed. River was more than vaguely aware of the kind of effect she had on people and even if she hadn’t expected such a reaction from someone so obviously lost, she didn’t precisely _mind_. She was clinging to her hand, clearly pleased by the closeness and River wasn’t about to deny her that; not when she was about to bring it all crashing down in the next few minutes.

“So!” Miss Smith’s carefully nonchalant voice was the only prompt she needed. “Starlight Studios. That’s what the sign at the gate said. You worked for them?”

“It was all behind the scenes, as you can imagine.” She’d been so close that the thought still made her shudder in disgust. “It was about their two big stars. The owner of the company used an Angel and a bunch of stolen technology to recreate them. Can’t tell you what happened to the originals; suppose they tried to get out and he had them killed. Either way, one of the copies reached out for help. He’d overhead someone talking about his death. I agreed; got involved because it seemed simple enough, and connected to my own string of cases, too. I’d planned to meet him at a party the next day, only he didn’t remember me. It wouldn’t have been too out of the ordinary if he’d only been pretending so that we wouldn’t be overheard, but he _wasn’t_. From then on, it just kept happening, both with him and his co-star. I had the misfortune of meeting their producer the day after that. It all went south from there.”

Miss Smith’s hand squeezed hers, the tension almost palpable in her touch. “How exactly?”

“He knew by then that I was a detective,” River shrugged. She hadn’t talked to anyone about this yet even if she’d been taking notes and she hadn’t realised that the story had been craving to get out quite so much. “Probably knew that I was onto something, too, but I hadn’t even imagined how _bad_ it was.”

They were nearing the first warehouse and she was the one holding on tight now, still intimidated by the place after what had turned out to be one of the more harmless adventures that she’d had to go through. Not that it had ever been about the threat to her life – she’d come dangerously close to something much worse back then. “Not for long, mind you. He showed me. Thought I’d make a good _double_ , in his own words. He led me to the room where he did it and introduced me to his Angel. The technology he’d put together transformed people into doppelgangers of his actors and then the Angel gave them life – and drained it from them again a few days later, of course. The process was speeding up as it got stronger and he needed more volunteers before he’d run out of bodies, so he cornered me. There were these tanks—” And the water, the deep, muddy water and the glass surface they’d been struggling against once they’d woken up— just looking at them had made it hard to breathe and had been half the reason why breaking free from her captors had taken her so long. “—that’s where he kept them. Had to be dozens of people.”

“Please,” Miss Smith said as soon as she’d stopped talking, as if the word had been itching to come out – her voice was tight and a little desperate. “Please tell me you did something exceptionally horrible to him.”

River shot her an amused smile, surprised by such a surge of bloodthirst from someone who had been so mild until now, only to find her face even paler than before. Her blunt nails were digging into her skin like her life depended on the one point of contact between them and the intensity written all over her features made River’s throat go dry with an entirely different emotion.

“Not me,” she said, tone softer than she’d expected it to be. “Well, I hypnotised him with my lipstick, but the Angel actually did most of the work. Turned him to dust right in front of me. I reversed the process for all the doubles I could find, but by then the Angel was gone. I think I’ve got a few leads on where it’s been taken, but for now, it’d be better to focus on your aircraft. If I could turn people back from clones, I can bring a ship back into existence.”

“No doubt about that.” Miss Smith tugged on her hand just enough to make her stop in her tracks. “But not if it’s with the same technology, right? Exploiting something like this—”

“Not exactly,” River tried to evade and got only a suspicious look in return. There was something familiar in her client’s eyes – a quiet, helpless kind of affection. Not love – it would be a ridiculous notion to entertain after so little time together – but far too prominent for an almost stranger. “It’s all about the time distortions, I think. The changes in time leave cracks behind and if you manage to sneak in through one of them, we could find the right place. It might even explain the Angel infestation, but even if it doesn’t, it’d still be enough. It’ll get you home.”

“Yes.” Miss Smith’s response was muted; far less determined than it had been when she’d first stepped into River’s office. “Home.”

“And your crew,” River continued, oddly compelled to comfort her with whatever she could. “We could use the machinery and the Vortex Manipulator as a beacon; we wouldn’t even have to tap into the Angel’s residual energy. It’d keep them safe. If you think they could land on their own here, it’d definitely help.”

“They wouldn’t know how.” The sullen demeanour hadn’t eased off, but she was absent-minded enough to follow River as they neared the entrance – or so it’d seemed at first. “Miss Malone— what you said about time. About the possible futures and the course of things you can sometimes see? Is there— can you feel something wrong now?”

“Plenty of things, but I don’t think you meant that in the general sense.” Miss Smith shook her head. “I’m not a prophet, I’m afraid. We’ll just have to wait and see like the rest of the Universe. But if you wanted to know more about your crew—”

“Not about them.” She was avoiding eye contact now, in the way she only ever did when she was trying to hide something. “They’ll be kept safe, I’m sure about that. I was thinking about _us_.”

 _Oh_. It was a terribly forward statement given the era and, depending on the way it could be interpreted, she could have suffered for it. She was either too brave to care or too alien to know and River wasn’t sure which option worried her more. “Miss Smith, whatever happens here—”

“I don’t want to just disappear.” She hadn’t let go of her, but had stepped closer until they were face to face again. And there it was, _something wrong_ once again; the world tilting slightly on its axis in a direction neither wrong nor right. _Different_. Different from what was yet to be seen. “Or to just be sent away to my ship without any warning. It’s not— I can’t keep doing this.”

“I understand.” It was how she’d had her ship taken away from her, after all, and even without that, River thought that she’d have sympathised. Her own life had been a long string of unexpected, unspoken goodbyes. “And I know you’re afraid, but I need you to _try_.”

 _Never run when you're scared_. It was a lesson she'd done her best to learn so many years ago and River had never really forgot the day when she'd first been presented with it. She'd stayed and she'd modelled her own future with that choice, whether she'd realised it or not - looking back, it had changed everything. In the time that had passed since then, it had rarely occurred to her to run in any direction but headfirst into danger when she was face to face with it and she had never intended to pass that philosophy down to someone much more easily breakable than her, but Miss Smith wasn't quite that, was she? She'd managed herself so far and she'd shown more bravery than the majority of River's clients until now. It only made sense that she'd push through it now too.

“I will.” The reassurance had been meant for both of them, River suspected, and although she didn't sound entirely sure, it would have to do. “You don't need to worry about me. That Angel— sounds like you were in a much greater danger back then.”

“I don't think I was, really.” She hadn't been too cautious, that much was true, but even with the life energy that the Angel had been fed right before her arrival, it had been far too weak to hurt her from a distance. The fact that it had disappeared quite so quickly had been a little unnerving, but she'd been too eager to move on to pay it the attention that it deserved. Now, as she sonicked the door open, she was starting to regret that choice - Weeping Angels weren’t the sort of monster that you could just evade to death when it was lives that they really wanted. “I'm not sure why, but I think I'm bound to find out sooner or later. Funny that you'd notice, though.” Every time she reminded herself just how limited their knowledge about one another was, River was a little more surprised by the supposed truth of it. “You've got quite the exploratory spirit, you know.”

“You could say that.” Miss Smith's preening was obvious enough even from the corner of her eye to make her lips twitch with amusement. “I'm a traveller, after all.”

“A Captain,” River supplied. It wasn't difficult to imagine her swanning around the galaxy with her small, apparently mostly clueless team. She was resourceful enough for an entire crew.

“Yes!” She leant in, likely to take a closer look at the multiple locks that River was trying to open, and her hand twitched towards the inner pocket of her coat before quickly retracting. It was difficult, River knew from experience, to suddenly find yourself lacking all the tools that you were used to. An interstellar captain must have had a lot of those before they'd been taken away without any warning whatsoever. “I like the sound of that. Bit militarised, though. Not sure how appealing _that_ would be.”

“Not very.” One of the mechanisms had finally budged and River lowered herself even closer to the ground to move on to the next. “You can trust me on this one.”

The startled moment of silence was exactly what she'd have expected, unlike the question that followed.

“You ever been in the Army, Miss Malone?”

“I've— co-operated with them when I needed to.” Not technically a lie, but not the truth either - not even a sliver of it. It was usually enough information for her to be able to gauge the reactions that people would have to her once she pulled out a weapon, although she had her doubts about whether it would work now. With anyone else, it would have all depended on the century and the place (back home, just the sight of a cleric's uniform made her shudder and made everyone fear her a little more; in Leadworth, the general population’s reservations about her along with that new update had provided her the personal space she'd always craved; here, in a decade still torn from the last war and standing on the precipice of the next one, it brought only respect with a dash of wonder when she refused to answer questions), but Miss Smith appeared to be just detached enough from humanity's history to not care.

The displeased huff she got in response suggested otherwise. “And you still decided to do this? Being a private detective, investigating the Angels. Doesn't it ever get tiring?”

This time, River couldn't hold her laughter back as another one of the locks came undone. If her client's intention was to distract her, then she had to admit that it was working.

“You know, my mother asked me something like that once.” It must have been at least ten years ago in her parents's linear timeline, she suspected; the year after they'd graduated high school. Most of the training she'd undergone was still a jumbled mess in her head, but she could remember this one rather well, both because of the particularly vicious bout of programming she'd been put through during _that_ abduction and because one of the Church's many imbeciles in power had botched her return to the expected time and place and had missed by about a year. Amy and Rory had been worried sick and, still exhausted and confused by everything she'd just gone through, she'd told them she'd thought she could try her luck in the Army. _As if you could ever follow that many orders without questioning them every five minutes_ , her mother had said and River had laughed until she'd felt sick all over again. “No, it doesn't. I'm good at what I do.” It was that and the digs she went to and the teaching she squeezed between it all and her trips with the Doctor. There wasn't much connecting it all apart from the thrill of it, at a first glance, and, “Love a hands-on job, me.” She grinned up at her companion with what she hoped was a smile slightly more relaxed than she herself was.

Miss Smith's face endured a few long moments of metamorphosis between pleased surprise, scandal and a hint of disapproval. “Wouldn't have guessed,” she muttered and River would have been far too eager to play along if it hadn't been for the door finally creaking open under the pressure she was applying.

“Ladies first,” she motioned, using the momentary confusion the remark had caused to make sure everything was where it ought to be - the blaster strapped to her thigh, barely noticeable under the dress, the gun in her inside pocket, the taser just a few inches higher up. The sonic had been more useful than all of them combined so far, but she hadn't been in the mood for taking chances; not when it came to this place.

“Didn't you say you came here just a few weeks ago?” Miss Smith's voice echoed in the empty corridor they'd found themselves in, as well as the vague affirmation that followed from River's direction. “It looks like it's been deserted for years.”

“That's the Angels at work for you. It's what they always do; squeeze the life out of everything they come near and believe me, this place was chock-full of food. Over here.” She took the lead, quickly manoeuvring them both past a few of the abandoned sets she'd been so warmly welcomed to before. Everything was left exactly how she'd last seen it - it had fallen apart a few hours after she'd left, just as she'd expected it to. So many lives lost, all because humanity had never learnt to stay away from things that it would never be able to understand. It hadn't even been out of curiosity - River could have forgiven that, given how well she understood the impulse - but, like the majority of things in this decade, greed and little else. If it hadn’t been for the quiet but immeasurable majority that proved that principle wrong on the daily, she was well aware that she’d have probably lost patience with Earth quite a while ago. She knew she was doing a lousy job of keeping an actual cover, but at some point in the last few months, it had stopped making any difference – she’d started taking cases that were either only marginally related to her investigation or not at all and was beginning to feel just a little intimidated by the realisation that despite that, all roads eventually led back there. They were gaining numbers and although she hadn’t figured out how they were doing it or how many they’d become – not enough to call it an invasion, at least for now – the ever-present sinking feeling low in her stomach, as ingrained as any of her other instincts, told her that she wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

“Miss Malone,” her client called out and River snapped out of her reverie to see her lingering at an all too familiar doorway. “I think this might be it.”

It was. Out of everything she'd already experienced in this city, this was one of the few sights that River suspected she'd definitely still remember years down the line - the shattered glass of the neat rows of tanks she'd broken, the pedestal on which the Angel had been put, the piles of dust that had formed after Kliener and his men had fallen apart right in front of her. Tearing her eyes away from the sight, River reached for her Vortex Manipulator to start running every possible scan she'd decided not to put herself through the first time around. The temporal energy hanging in the air was powerful enough to disorient her as much as that music hall had before, but she kept it at bay, preferring for once to trust the technology she'd brought for that exact purpose. Her time-space senses could be useful every now and again, but they weren't particularly good at not drowning everything else out for long enough to almost get her killed, and plus, she'd need a more precise location here. There was no room for error.

There wasn't much point in worrying about it either - at this point, River was quite sure that she'd narrowed their possibilities down to the bare minimum. The Angels were causing distortions all over the city, but the majority of them were still dormant - or at least dormant enough to not be of any interest to anyone involved. They'd need something bigger to trigger them into activity, but _what_? All her leads had pointed her at a collector - a well-known criminal, really, but a rather popular _hoarder_ on the side all the same - who had taken interest in them and everything she'd been able to find out suggested that he'd been the one to arrange the displacement of this one too. It had moved on its own, likely, and he had found it somewhere along the way, but it gave her the information she'd needed - for now, it was the only one alive enough to suit his needs. If it had been the first one to arrive, then it'd be enough for her to try and nip the problem in the bud and find Miss Smith's missing ship along the way.

None of that had answered the rather persistent question of the placement of everything that had gone missing - too deliberate, too easy - but River did her best to smother the desire to explore that for now. One thing at a time, if she had any say about it.

“It's like something's interfering with them.” It was an observation for her own years more than anything, but her client's eyes darted to her anyway. The air of anxiety hadn't entirely dissipated, but it wasn't as intense as before either - it was as if she was waiting for the other shoe to drop; for something to inevitably go wrong. River couldn't blame her. “Whatever it is, it's making them weaker and weakening the time structure of this entire place at the same time.”

“The building?”

“The city. It's— misbalanced, somehow.” It was both in the readings of her scanner and in the possibilities swirling in her head every time she dared to delve a little deeper. “And it's spreading out like a disease. They're not strong enough to actually drain it for now,” wrong word, she thought, since they'd stop draining power eventually and move on to lives _and she wasn't supposed to know this yet_ , “but they'll get there. They could get farther if we let them.”

“We'll do no such thing, then.”

 _There's no ‘we’,_ River was about to scold her, only to remember that she'd just said it herself. “I would never,” she said instead, trying to insert as much impression of a wounded pride in the statement as she could - just enough to deflect from the previous sentiment, she hoped. “As soon as I can decode these readings, I'll have the location of the Angel and if I have that, we'll know what's messing with it too. Something big; has to be. It's the intentions of whoever’s on board that worry me.”

Something about this most recent theory made Miss Smith restless enough to come even closer and start peeking at the screen as if she was trying to translate the results mid-scan. “So you think it's a ship?”

“It's bound to be someone who's here on purpose, but _why_? Nobody's cared enough about this time and place enough to visit it before. I'd know; I checked before I started the investigation.” She had to admit that her presence had been rather loud in all the time she’d been here, what with all the tech she'd brought and her actions so far, but not quite enough for anyone to pick up on it - especially not someone with the means of time travel. Few others would be able to make it unless equipped with the exact same tools that she'd brought. “The city is so dense with disruptions that it might as well be time-locked. No one would be stupid enough to try and get in.” She shot a quick glance in her companion's direction and was faced with the exact affronted look that she'd expected. “No one from a different time period, that is. I'm sure it would have been perfectly safe for you to land here if it hadn't been for the Angel in Apollo Theatre.”

Unless she'd lied, of course. It was always a possibility, especially with the type of clients who weren't too eager to state their species or planet of origin upon arrival, but it would have been rather pointless to try and hinder the search for her own team.

Miss Smith cleared her throat. “Once you've got a lock on the Angel,” she ventured, voice still holding some of the tension that had shone through her eyes a moment ago, “what then?”

“ _Then_ I'll need to find the Angel and hope that it hasn't brought reinforcements in the meantime. If that's not the case, I'll try to examine it and find all the gaps in the skin of reality here. If I can do that, I could close them once and for all. It'd cut off their power source, get me your ship's coordinates and prevent any similar accidents from happening in the future.”

“All from an examination?” River wasn't entirely sure whether she was in awe or just slightly intimidated, but really, either suited her. She nodded. It wouldn't be all that daring if the Angels really were the root of the issue and her doubts about that being the case were melting away more and more by the minute. “Wouldn't it be dangerous?”

“Could be.” She'd found the only real weak spot in this bright vision of events and River was more than willing to sweep it under the rug as quickly as possible. Her client’s affinity for holding her back had brought her nothing but complications so far. “I'm working on a theory.”

“Is _a theory_ enough to keep you safe?”

“Is anything?” She didn’t wait for a response; not when she could already predict the kind that she was most likely to get. “It doesn’t really matter. Once an Angel is powerful enough to stop draining its victims on the spot, it’ll try to do what they always do; keep people as a feeding source for longer. You know how it goes – as soon as you understand how something works, you can use that to take from it what you can and then bring it down. Easiest thing in the world.”

Now it was Miss Smith who looked a little faint and perhaps she’d overdone it a bit – it wouldn’t be _quite_ so simple no matter how quickly they’d be able to track down each of the components they needed – but it was all the reassurance she could give her.

Of _course_ , it hadn’t been enough. Had it ever been with her? “It _does_ sound simple when you put it like that,” she conceded, but her expression spoke of a different sentiment entirely, “but it doesn’t explain how you’re going to even approach it.”

“That’s where my theory kicks in. I’ll need to do more research—”

“Research isn’t going to help if it sends you back in time before you can blink! Or right after that, as you’d— never mind the blinking. Miss Malone,” she started over in the tone that River had come to associate with yet another attempt at reining in a plan she didn’t approve of, “if you’re not entirely sure how they function and whether your machinery would work on them, then you shouldn’t—”

“Shouldn’t I?” River had never been awfully good at taking suggestions once they were forceful enough and although she had seen this coming, the apprehensive whims that kept raining over her now and again were starting to get a bit much. “I thought that maybe you’d like to see your crew again, seeing as you’ve got less chance of surviving an Angel than I do.”

“Not at the expense of _you_.” She’d said something similar before, hadn’t she? _Not one person_ — Would say, would have said, if River— if what? The thread had disappeared just before she’d had the chance to get a firmer hold of it. It was as if she’d taken a look into her companion’s mind or had received an _impression_ of it, at least, sharp and intrusive, in an attempt to convince her; her own face reflected in eyes that belonged to neither of them. “Never that.” _Not one living thing_. It was a memory or a possibility or a gift and usually she couldn’t see this much unless it was forced upon her or if she wasn’t on her own – but she was. The TARDIS couldn’t reach her here; could never help in the way she would potentially need her to. “From what you’ve said about these creatures, they’re unpredictable. Even if you got away the last time or the time before that, that doesn’t mean—”

“Shut up.”

The scandalised silence that followed was almost bliss – would have been, if it hadn’t been for River’s own mind making everything so noisy. “ _Excuse me_?”

“ _Please_ shut up.” She didn’t look up, suddenly reluctant to face the doubtlessly heartbreaking expression that Miss Smith somehow always adopted when thwarted in any way. A guilt trip, no matter how unintentional, was the last thing she needed just now. “I can’t— I need to think.” And she was used to dealing with endless rambling, enough so that it shouldn’t have bothered her, but it was that much more difficult without the relative calm that a psychic link could offer once she sought it out. Whatever she’d just experienced hadn’t been all that different, but she’d been left with the distinct feeling that neither of them was actually in control of it – yet another item on the short list of things that unsettled her beyond belief. “The results should come in any moment now.”

It had been a desperate attempt at diffusing the situation and for once, River had pinpointed the right thing to say to bring out the reaction she wanted.

“All right.” Miss Smith had stepped closer, one hand outstretched hesitantly, only resting on River’s shoulder once she gave her permission with a curt nod. It was a small comfort, knowing that she’d recognised the symptoms from last time and had decided to not be quite as straightforward as she’d been back then and slowly, River let herself warm up to the touch. It was a gradual process, but she’d been there before; it always took some getting used to. “Is there— you said you didn’t feel anything wrong about all of this. Not in the temporal sense.” The question hung in the air between them for all of a second before she gathered the courage to ask. “Has that changed?”

“I wouldn’t say so, but it hasn’t _not_ changed either. I doubt that makes any sense.”

“It does, a bit.” River had been just about to ask for further clarification – if she meant it instead of just trying to make her feel better, perhaps they’d actually get somewhere – when the scanner went off, startling them both enough for Miss Smith to flinch away from her. “Well?”

“I know where the Angel is.” Honestly, it was almost a relief. Focusing on the sheer indescribable terror that a Weeping Angel could usually bring out of anyone was far more preferable when compared to the distinct feeling of time shifting in her head over and over again until it was more a loop than a line. “It’s far from here, but still in the outskirts of the city; he must have wanted to keep it hidden for now. It won’t last long, though, so we’d better hurry. Mr Grayle isn’t particularly clever when it comes to the supernatural, or so I’ve heard.”

She was already nearing the entrance by the time she realised that her companion had stayed behind, staring sightlessly in River’s general direction. She was even paler than usual, as if she’d seen a ghost, and if she hadn’t been so new to the city, it might have made sense – the name rang a bell for a good portion of the locals and was rarely a good sign. “Miss Smith?”

“ _Yes_ , sorry.” She hurried to catch up, but the haunted look hadn’t left her eyes. She’d pressed herself even closer against River’s side as they headed for the car again and this time, she allowed it, somehow sympathetic with the sort of grief she could sense around her; distant and muddled and quieter than she would have liked it to be. She was going to experience it very soon and had done it a long time ago. _It’s Professor Song to you_. It was yet another hint; an echo of words she had had no reason to say _yet_. Perhaps she wasn’t (wouldn’t be) as alone as she’d thought, but with any luck, it wouldn’t matter by then, even if she did get visitors – she didn’t intend to keep this case going for that long when it had seemed so close to its conclusion on so many occasions. “Time to go.”

“That it definitely is.”

River had long since given up wondering if it was in the right direction.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /It's chapters like these that are the reason for the 'Film Noir' tag up above, because it's moody and weird and largely relies on characters and nothing else. You have been warned from the start, I suppose, but here's a double warning./  
> A joint chapter! That's a first (and a last, likely) for this fic, but it didn't make much sense to split it into two shorter chapters when it could fit just right into my usual chapter length like this. Plus, it's a relatively peaceful chapter (for reasons you guys can probably already guess), so here it is. I tried my best with the proofreading, but to tell you the truth, it's been a rather long day. Speaking of which: sorry for the delay for this one! I'm in the midst of finals month and writing times are scarce. Thank you guys for the kudos and wonderful comments! They make it so much easier to get through these final two weeks before things go back to normal. ;3
> 
> That being said, hope you guys enjoy it and feedback is always welcome! ^^

By the time River had figured out their exact next destination, the sun had long since set and they were both rather exhausted from the day’s events. Realistically, she could see that the majority of it had transpired in her own head, but it had seemed to be contagious – Miss Smith had gone uncharacteristically quiet as well and had only nodded her agreement when River had suggested giving it a go tomorrow morning, right before sunrise. In her experience, it was the best time for any robbery and it would help her keep low profile for a while longer.

“We’d have to be careful,” she’d explained when her companion had asked for more details. “He’s hired a detective to follow me.”

“A detective.” There was something mildly amused in her tone and just like that, the heavy atmosphere that had taken over the small vehicle had lifted by a fraction. The situation definitely wasn’t a laughing matter, especially so for a woman who had lost her entire crew in the process, but Miss Smith must have been infected by River’s own rather grim sense of humour at some point. It was the only kind that thrived in this era – and the Universe at large if one looked at it from afar, really – and she found herself responding with a quick smile and a glance away from the road to acknowledge it.

“Kliener – that producer I told you about – did the same thing.” _Hello, doll_. River shuddered. In hindsight – which rarely did her any good once she had it - she should have put an end to the entire thing right then and there. No conversation that started this way with someone like him could ever end in anything good. “It’s funny, really, because Garner did some work for the man we’re about to rob of an angel tomorrow. It’s a small world and this is as resourceful as those people can get, I think.”

Acquiring an Angel to do their bidding, getting a detective to follow another detective – really, if the greediest citizens of New York got just a little braver, they’d go extinct for too soon. She’d be out of research material.

Of course, she thought as she returned today’s car of choice to its previous place, it had gone a bit further than that. Perhaps she should have known better than to make a project out of creatures that fed on time, especially considering her heritage, but it was far too late to worry about that now that she was stuck a time vortex away from anything and anyone she knew.

Not that she was _actually_ stuck, River amended. There was stuck and there was this and she knew the difference far too well after so many years of being contained in one way or another. She could still sneak out unnoticed if she tried, but the entire thing had been fascinating – still was – and she intended to stay until she got answers to the questions that had sprung up one after another. It was the Angel’s behaviour that bothered her more than anything. It had been weak enough to not be able to send people back in time and had destroyed them where they stood instead, but it had never actually harmed _her_. It had definitely had a chance while she’d been trying to break free from her very human – in the literal sense of the word, at least – opponents, and yet—

And yet, she kept getting away. Angels were as parasitic as they were predatory and in the time she’d spent in New York, she had seen more than enough people fall victims to them in an attempt to get their loved ones back once they were sent back in time. It often caused a chain reaction and, she suspected, it was how they had got so strong to begin with. It wasn’t just the lives not yet lived; it was all the people left behind too. The Angels had started feeding on love and devotion and loss as much as they did on potential. It was very efficient, she had to give them that, but after all the clients she’d had recently – after the _Byzantium_ , which felt like an eternity ago – she should have really ran out of luck by now. It wasn’t that she was complaining, but luck had rarely been on her side before. Or it had been, depending on the way she looked at it, but it hadn’t precisely classified as good fortune then.

Her good fortune had a name and there was no way she was going to encounter him in the here and now. She hadn’t even bothered sending a message of any kind when a few of her cases had escalated; her senses were strong enough for her to realise that she was on her own this time. The fact that she’d found an unexpected sliver of help in the face of this particular client didn’t change much.

Their walk back home, short as it was, was a welcome breath of fresh air in every sense of the word. Her companion had yet to return to her usual endless stream of monologue and River realised, not without a hint of dismay, that she rather missed it. It had been a great distraction while present and it had given her a surprising amount of insight, too – she was just so _alien_. Of course, the same could be said about an impressive number of her clients, but the majority of them had done their best to integrate into the human world around them as well as they could. Miss Smith hadn’t minded sticking out since the very start. It was risky, bordering on reckless. It was also one of the main reasons why River had decided to take her case.

It was quite distracting at times as well, much to her chagrin. As they made their way back to her office through the city’s dark streets, Miss Smith seemed to brace herself to start speaking about fifteen different times, only to decide against it a moment later. River could feel a smile budding on her lips, as indulgent as it was impatient.

“Go on, then” she said at last. “Out with it.”

Her companion turned to face her. “Sorry?”

“Whatever it is that you want to ask,” River clarified. She’d never been fond of people walking on eggshells around her and although she could understand the hesitance amidst all the secrets and half-truths that she’d offered in return for the woman’s trust in her, it was still making her stand on edge. “How bad can it be?”

“It depends.” The assessment was quiet enough for River to realise that she’d meant it mainly to herself even as Miss Smith soldiered on. “It’s about the Angel. Once we get there— what then?”

“We were over this already, weren’t we? Your ship—”

“The truth this time, please.” There was that edge to her voice again; tense and stern and tentative all at once. “It’s just that the first time we met, when you took me to Central Park, what you were ready to do— you knew that Angels could be behind it.” It hadn’t been a question, but River nodded her affirmation all the same. “And you were— affected when you saw them up close. But you’re not scared of them. They scare you on behalf of other people and because of the way they work, but you’re not _afraid_ of them.”

“No.” When put like that, it _was_ rather obvious. River hadn’t been too willing to endure yet another attempt at having her mental state dissected – too many people had tried, to wildly varying results – but did her best to keep quiet. It could very well be their very last night together; the least she could do was try to understand. “I suppose I’m not.”

The silence stretched between them and Miss Smith had slowed her step considerably, face half hidden by the sparse streetlights shining above them. Her expression – what little River could see from it – was earnest, but the thousand emotions running over her features still made for a thin veil when compared to what lurked underneath; something anxious and awestruck and just on the verge of terrified. For all of an instant, it felt like looking straight into a mirror.

“I’d like to know why that is.”

It should have been a simple enough question, but River found herself unable to answer – not here, in any case, where anyone could hear them. She didn’t consider herself particularly paranoid, but it was only common sense ever since she’d realised that she had become more famous than she had ever intended to be in this city. It was yet another timelines-related issue, she suspected – another irritation in the back of her mind that she couldn’t fully ignore no matter how hard she tried.

“Of course.” It was a reasonable request, really, after everything she had told her about the Angels, and River had long since given up on trying to get the woman to follow the simple rules she’d laid out for them. “How about we head back home? I’m not sure there’s much of a story to tell, but I can show you.”

The smile she got in return was positively blinding. “I think I’d like that.”

***

 _Home_ , as River had come to call it recently, didn’t provide much of a chance for security – the walls were too thin, the building too preoccupied with exactly the sort of people that she’d usually had as inmates back in Stormcage. Being surrounded by like-minded people had always been a good first step on the road to certain disaster and she’d taken to avoiding her neighbours just in case. She’d been hiding her temporary roommate to some degree as well, now that she thought about it; enough for it to be something she very pointedly did _not_ think about.

In any case, Miss Smith had taken a liking to the place since the very start. It was small and cramped and too mechanical and would have scared away most people, she suspected, but her client still enjoyed having something to occupy herself with at all times. Being a Captain must have left her with a lot of responsibility about the ship’s well-being on her hands, River supposed, and she seemed to be happiest when she was busy building machines out of the discarded knickknacks of River’s countless half-finished projects. There was a spark in her eyes every time she tried her hand at it that felt altogether too familiar and River had tried her very best not to find it endearing.

 “More tests?” Miss Smith ventured now when River’s scanner went off for the nth time that evening. Ever since they’d arrived, she had been trying to get the machine to display the data it got in a language that would be more comprehensible to the rest of the Universe than Gallifreyan was and had only succeeded on translating half of it in English – it was a rather limited language, but it’d have to do. She nodded. “On the Angel’s trace?”

“On myself. There’s something _off_ about that Angel. It felt that way the first time around too.” She hadn’t been able to place it more precisely back then, but it was slowly starting to make sense now, bit by bit. “If my theory turns out to be correct, my life would become a whole lot easier. I promised an explanation, so that’s what you’re getting.”

“And what exactly—” Miss Smith reached for the scanner. “Mind if I take a look at this?”

“Go ahead.” It wasn’t very likely that she’d get the sort of information that could ever be dangerous, River supposed, and anything could be of help. “It’s just strange. I’ve had an impressive success rate with recovering missing things so far, you know,” she said as she fumbled with the furnace that the flat had come with in a vain attempt to make the place just a little warmer. It could have been much easier if she’d just sonicked it, she supposed, but Miss Smith had started watching her with such rapt attention that she found herself willing to try for just a bit longer. “And it’s not that I mind, of course, but it feels like too much. It’s not how the Angels _work_ , usually, and it bothers me how easy it’s been. Well, apart from your case, that is, but that’s to be expected.”

Her client had been far too involved in her methods every step of the way and she must have understood the implication now, if the guilty glance away from River’s work was anything to go by. “It’s not a bad thing, though, is it?”

“It’s not, but it’s unexplained. Not a big fan of that.” Her efforts hadn’t had quite the effect she’d been hoping for, but she let it go for the time being in order to return her attention to the scanner – and the mystified client that went with it. “It’s as if something else’s helping, but I can’t figure out what it is or how it’s going it.”

“Is it really so strange? Someone helping out?”

“It is when it’s helping me.” The list of people who would have a similar impulse was just about long enough for River to be able to count them on the fingers of both her hands if she was feeling optimistic. The list of creatures that would try to trap her into thinking she had backup, however, was infinitely longer. “It always makes me suspicious.”

“So you’re blaming it on a biological quirk?” Miss Smith turned her gaze back to the scanner and for a moment, her squint against the screen’s glare was almost enough to make River nervous. It was impossible to tell whether she could actually decipher any of the readings and River watched her like a hawk for any change of expression that she could detect. It didn’t really matter how backward her client’s world supposedly was – there weren’t many species in the Universe that weren’t aware of what a Time Lord was. Even half of one was quite a catch, as she’d been reliably informed enough times for it to be drilled into her mind over the years. It hadn’t occurred to her to be wary of her until now, but there was a first time for everything. She’d acquainted herself years ago with the kind of bloodthirst that a title like ‘the child of a TARDIS’ could inspire in people before she’d even managed to open her mouth and escalate the situation further.

“Not precisely,” she said now, trepidation creeping into her tone. She wasn’t far from the truth now, whether she realised it or not. “What do you make of it?”

“More than you’d expect, I think.” It didn’t sound particularly like a threat, but it was still enough to make River stand on edge. “It’s all comparisons, isn’t it? You’ve been studying some of their victims. The ones who didn’t make it back, precisely.”

“Not in this city, no.” The risk of running into another version of herself had started bordering on the verge of ill-advanced even for her standards – she would only show up in another three decades, of course, but somewhere in her fuzzy memories of her earlier years, she could still find the image of Kovarian and her trial and error methods when it came to time travel. Her life was a carefully mapped out line of fixed points and barely subverted paradoxes; that much had been clear to all of her _carers_ since the day she’d been born. Putting further strain on it was bordering on too dangerous even by her standards. “But you’re right; I’ve been making visits every now and again. A lot of those eyewitness records I made you sit through came from them. It was a pet project at first, but,” she shrugged, trying for nonchalant even as she fast approached the point of no return in this conversation, “then it became a little more personal.”

“Part of the _pet project_ now, are you?”

“You always get stuck on the strangest things, you know.” It was _protective_ , almost, and she seemed to only get more agitated at the sight of River’s laughter. “Yes, in a way, that’s exactly what I did. And I think I found what I was looking for, look.” She stepped closer; enough to be able to point at the screen over Miss Smith’s shoulder. “See the readings? They’re different from almost every other species I could pick up.” _Almost_ , because there was always the Doctor, but he’d said it himself – he had _centuries_ on her. It was very likely that the Angels would affect him in an even more unexpected way than the theories she had for herself. Plus, she wasn’t as willing to hurl him into the vortex for an experiment as she was when it came to herself, even if the results turned out to work in their favour. “It made me wonder. If there’s a reason for my success rate – beyond my skills, of course, that is – where everyone else has failed, why not exploit it?”

“Because it could end up killing you?” There was a specific kind of incredulity to her voice that River was beginning to get used to. It was still vaguely intrusive, but she didn’t mind it quite as much given that it showed her that she’d added another person to the list of entities around her that would genuinely want to help if it ever came to that.

“That’s not how the Angels work.” It wasn’t precisely a lie – it wasn’t how they’d worked here so far, but she still remembered her first encounter with them altogether too well; the way they’d resorted to murder as soon as they’d realised that getting what they usually needed would be impossible.

“You can’t know that.” Perhaps the memory had been just visible enough on her face for her companion to pick up speed again. “Even if you’re right and they can’t send you back in time, they could still do a lot worse to you if you’re not careful. You said it yourself, they’re remorseless creatures, and if you get caught up in—”

“You’ve never seen one, have you?”

Miss Smith’s protest died as soon as she’d spoken. “No.”

River stepped closer, if only to watch her eyes widen and her hold around the chair’s handle tighten as if she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to lean in or get up and run. The former seemed to be winning out. “So it’s just my story that’s got you so scared.”

“I’m not _scared_.” The denial was just vehement enough to be a lie. “Not for myself, anyway. If something goes wrong tomorrow, how are you— how are we—” River waited for her to find her way around whatever this particular gloomy vision was going to turn into. “How are you going to get back home?”

Somehow, the simple question felt far more forward than any breach she’d forced upon the boundaries of River’s alter ego so far.

“When did I say anything about home?”

“You never did,” Miss Smith conceded. Her dark eyes were just wide enough for River to see the way they glistened; the yellowish glare of the small chandelier making them look almost black. “Which means you either don’t have one, or the possibility of never seeing it again hurts too much for you to think about it.”

She wasn’t about to give up, that much was clear. She was driven by the sort of endless, stubborn optimism of pushing forward until you stumbled upon something that would change your opponent’s mind and River hated her a little for how hopelessly easy it was to fall into the lure of it yet again. It wasn’t the same, it couldn’t be – her client didn’t know her anywhere close enough for that to happen – but it was still so painfully _close_ , and.

And it was really quite obvious that they could be dead by morning. It wouldn’t hurt too much to give up just this once and for just a little while. The rest of the Universe would never have to know.

“Follow me,” River said, turning towards the door without as much as a look to see if Miss Smith would obey. She hadn’t disappointed so far. “There’s something I want you to see.”

~.~

She’d made a mistake.

It wasn’t an admission that the Doctor frequently made, if she were being honest with herself. Mistakes were rarely something she could afford, what with how many lives always ended up depending on her decisions, but they still happened, far more often than she would have liked to admit.

Today’s stunt, even by her standards, could have been _catastrophic_.

Trying to bring River out of the whirlwind of her own mind by inflicting the memories of their shared past – this River’s future – on her had been more than reckless and she hadn’t _meant_ to be quite so obvious with it, as weak as an excuse that was. It had worked without revealing her identity and potentially unravelling their entire timeline, but it had still held more risk than she could afford at the moment and for one endless, shining moment the Doctor hadn’t _cared_. The Universe and paradoxes and time itself hadn’t mattered when compared to the determination in River’s eyes to try and sacrifice her own life for someone she barely even knew. She had encountered it far too many times before. The memory of the very first time she’d seen it dancing in her eyes with it had haunted her for over a thousand years now. She had never wanted to see it again.

But then again, when it came to River, few things had ever happened exactly the way she’d planned them.

Looking at it from the bright side – as bright as it could get, considering their situation and plans for the immediate future – it had worked, at least on a surface level; it had been enough to pull her out of the scheming for yet another plan she’d only just stitched together. It was as much of a spoiler as the Doctor would ever be allowed to give her, but she hoped it had left a lasting impression. Given all the experiences she’d had with her wife directly after her stay in New York, she somehow doubted it.

Not that she could talk – clearly she hadn’t learnt anything useful along the way either. River’s endless curiosity towards the Universe at large and her own inner workings, dangerous as it was, had never been something the Doctor had been able to reason with and in the here and now, as Joan Smith, it was even less likely that she’d manage to influence her. Trying again when they were already on the way tomorrow would probably be far more helpful.

So really, she had no reason not to follow her out of the flat once River had made the suggestion. The Doctor’s arguments, impassioned as they had been, didn’t appear to have convinced her of anything, but she clearly had a point to make here and resisting had never done any good – especially not since it was always so _difficult_. It had always been the sensible option, but she had never actually brought herself to follow through before, yet another perpetually unlearnt lesson taunting her from her own memories.

She was beginning to understand by the time they got to the rooftop and ran into the stark change in the atmosphere. River’s flat was in a slightly better shape ever since the Doctor had started inhabiting it – it looked lived in now, she could say that much about it – but it was still an unbearably stuffy place. The office that she spent so many nights in was dark enough to make it nearly impossible to see regardless of the time of day and what awaited once you stepped out of the front door was no better. The stairs creaked with every step, the neighbours were as shifty and secretive as River herself was and it was difficult to imagine that she’d spent this long here in the first place.

The rooftop, however, was an entirely different ordeal.

The night was almost pitch black in their secluded corner of the city and cold enough to make even the Doctor to shiver while her detective sonicked the door into locking, but she still followed the shimmering trail of River’s dress as she made her way through the knickknacks piled haphazardly around, most of them likely her doing. The building was narrow enough for the Doctor to be able to see over the edge in all directions and the night had grown foggy enough for the streets several floors down below to start looking fuzzy around the edges – it was dangerous, being unable to see in a city that never slept. She looked resolutely away.

“Over here,” River called out and the Doctor headed towards her until she’d found a clearing among the wreckage where River had made herself comfortable. She had the Doctor’s screwdriver in one hand and her Vortex Manipulator in the other, something thin and long wedged in-between – something that looked like a cigarette once one of its ends was set alight, but instead of smoke, all that came out was another thin layer of fog – one that spread over right over them this time, secured around the edges of the rooftop and making their surroundings noticeably warmer. “It’s just a force field. Doesn’t do much, but it should be enough.”

Her voice was quieter now, almost reverent, and she barely chanced a look in the Doctor’s direction once she took a seat next to her. It was all the invitation she needed to prompt, “Enough for what?”

“Enough for this.” She’d tilted her head up and the Doctor followed her line of sight until she was looking straight into the frozen sky once again. It wasn’t quite as dark anymore; the scattered stars above them drawing her attention immediately. “I know, it’s a shame. It’s mostly light pollution for now. Give it a couple of decades and it’ll be just plain pollution if you’re not looking at it through a filter like this one.” She was silent for a moment, looking back down to fiddle with the sonic until the world around them came into an even sharper focus. “You asked me about home. There it is. The closest thing I’ve got to one, really.” A quick, blinding smile before she settled even closer to the Doctor, abandoning the sonic to lie back against the stone beneath them instead – stone that, upon further inspection, turned out to be much smoother with whatever adjustments she’d made to the place. “You keep questioning the motivations behind everything I do, but I think you can understand _that_.”

“How come?” The Doctor really rather hoped she hadn’t sounded as breathless as the question had been to her own ears. Now that they were both in a horizontal position, River’s hair was fanned out around her head like a pillow and her eyes shining even brighter than the stars above them and she had never been as close or as unreachable before. It almost hurt to keep looking at her.

“Of course you do.” There was so much confidence in that statement alone for the Doctor to know that she would have followed in whatever direction she decided to pull her towards. “A captain from beyond the stars with a ship floating aimlessly between here and there— it only makes sense that it’s not just your ship that ended up lost.”

“Trust me,” the Doctor said, one hand searching blindly in the darkness until her wife met her halfway, “I know exactly where I’m standing.”

“So do I. Doesn’t mean I’m not lost.” She hadn’t let go yet – it was the only contact she seemed to find halfway tolerable, or so it had appeared before their visit to Starlight when they’d both needed some reassurance in order to enter the building – and slowly, inch by inch, the Doctor brought their linked fingers up where the point of connection was in her field of vision once she turned towards River. “But this is _it_. What we’re going to do tomorrow is what we were heading towards from the start. If we find the Angel, we can find your ship. Once we do that, I think I’m going to take what I can get from my research and get out of here too before it becomes impossible even for me. We can’t risk getting stuck here, you do understand that. You must, if you have people to go back to.”

“You can’t think—”

“I can and I do.” If River hadn’t been particularly inclined to listen before, she was even less so now. “The past few weeks— every move I make in this city makes the timelines shift in some way and it’s driving me crazy. Knowing my own history – and I only know bits and pieces – staying here even longer could end in tears. Well,” she amended, the barely noticeable smile from before curling her lips again, “more tears than usual. I’m not giving this city one more death. Mine or anyone else’s.”

“Melody—” She waited for River’s eyes to harden like they had so many times when someone used the name, holding her breath before she would have to come face to face with all of the little tells that meant that she felt threatened. They never came, replaced by surprise and interest instead – cautious, but definitely present. It was almost a relief to say it by now; to see her respond to anything other than the persona of the mysterious detective that she’d built around herself and the layers of disguise that followed hand in hand with it. Melody had seemed to fit just right here, at the quick, painful flash towards the childhood she ~~had spent~~ would spend here two and a half decades from now.

 _Mel_ , she had wanted to say, just like she had so many times before River had settled into her new name and the history it had. She had been Melody to her parents and Mels to her friends (and there _was_ a difference; a palpable one that none of them had ever fully managed to overcome) and River to him and the Doctor had wanted something new and light; something with no expectations to speak of. It would have officially been the end of whatever little defence she had left when it came to her identity and she could barely bring herself to care.

“This is it,” River said again, inching ever so slightly closer until her head was almost resting on the Doctor’s shoulder. “Tomorrow morning, I’m going to get you your crew back and I’m going to get myself home. There’s nothing to fear.”

 _Mel, Mels, Melody_. She would always fear for her, and although her wife had never quite realised that, it was a constant presence in the back of her mind, sharp and breathtaking as the stars above them. “I already told you; I’m not afraid.” She got a derisive snort in response. “There’s still some time ‘till morning, Miss Malone.”

There was comfort in the name now, in a way. She would get to be that for just a few more hours and then she would succeed like she always did and the Doctor would have to go (and meet her again, centuries in the past in this very city, fully unaware of what was waiting for him) and the goodbye would hurt just a little less this time. It would have to. There was only so much love that either of her hearts could take before she cracked and she would have to make sure to leave before that, to keep both their futures in one piece if nothing else.

River twisted around to look at her again, her eyes full of promise. “I’m a time traveller. I could get us there in a second.”

She couldn’t help herself. The Doctor wrapped an arm around her shoulders and waited for the inevitable tension in her frame before she very deliberately relaxed once again. “Or you could take forever.”

“Yes,” River agreed, and the Doctor would have found the involuntary lowering of her eyelids even more endearing if it hadn’t started happening to her as well as she was lulled to sleep by the warmth in the darkness around them and her wife’s undeniable presence under her touch for the first time in an eternity. “Forever suits me too.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I apologise deeply for the delay - RL has been a bit intense lately, both in uni and in work. Meanwhile I've started Camp NaNo and finishing this fic is definitely part of that project - there are only two or three chapters to go now, depending on whether I opt for an epilogue or not. This chapter mainly serves its purpose in the last few paragraphs, to be entirely honest, but it _does_ serve a purpose for tying things together with canon eventually, so there's that.  
>  Hope you guys enjoy it and, as always, feel free to let me know what you think! ^^

Even with River’s makeshift temperature-adjusting protective layer above them still in place, it was easy for the Doctor to tell that it was significantly _warmer_ when she next opened her eyes. It wasn’t her only observation upon waking up, but it was, surprisingly enough, the easiest one to tackle and she reached out with her senses until she’d found the source. _Another time shift_.

They’d already experienced one while she’d been here. It had been an unsettling experience – the entire city had travelled about two days into the past and even though no one but them had felt it, watching people go through the motions of things they had already done wasn’t a sight she wanted to ever lay her eyes on again. It was one thing to see people disappear and age and die because of the way the Weeping Angels worked, but another thing entirely to see it in motion when it was this warped and even more unnatural than she would have usually deemed it.

But this was different. For one, they’d definitely moved into the future from what she could tell. They’d moved through a much greater period of time, too, which had managed to disturb just about every internal sensor she had.

River, on the other hand, was taking it all in stride – not much of a surprise. Being a little bit of a paradox herself must have been helpful, the Doctor thought, although it was difficult to determine – as per usual, her wife wasn’t too eager to open up in front of anyone, least of all people she was only cautiously starting to be fond of.

“Oh, it’s happened a couple of times,” she waved her off once the Doctor had voiced her concerns and decided to ask whether this was a frequent occurrence or not. “Nothing to be afraid of, from what I’ve gathered. You just need to be somewhat used to time travel, I think. As long as you’re aware of it, things go pretty smoothly.”

“And if you’re not?” She wouldn’t be affected either way, of course, but the unease in her voice had nothing to do with keeping up her cover. This city was _enormous_. Despite all the time she’d already spent here, she hadn’t been able to see it all, but it had still been enough for her to realise that millions of people lived in it. If they just vanished every few months—

“You’d still be safe for the most part.” They’d made their way back to River’s flat and she started rummaging through her piles of barely used technology, flashing her yet another mildly patronising smile as if worrying about time jumps entirely out of your control was the least of her troubles and a minor annoyance at best. Knowing her, it might just have been true, especially at this point in her life. “Even on a larger scale, the Angels affect any living creatures in their immediate surroundings before they do it to anyone else. Random disappearances in a city like this one aren’t unheard of; in fact, they can be a part of the scenery sometimes. The Angels have more intuition than any real thought processes, but even the most basic predators have enough sense to know where they won’t be stopped.” She took another look at her device, seemingly still lost in thought. “April the 2nd, 1938. Ah, it could’ve been much worse, you know.”

It could have been, the Doctor knew. It didn’t stop a chill from running down her spine.

It could have been such a simple statement and if the date had been any other, the Doctor knew that she would have been relieved. They’d moved _forward_ in time and not by that much, either. It was vastly preferable to turning back but it was also far, far too close for comfort.

One day. She only had one day to find a way out of this mess before her own past self arrived here. How was she supposed to handle this in _one day_?

“There’s no need to panic,” River reminded her, still gentle if a bit tentative, as if she wasn’t too used to offering the sort of comfort needed when you’ve accidentally travelled several months into the future in your sleep. “If your crew is caught in the in-between in the way everyone else until now has been and they haven’t ended up anywhere else instead, they’ll be _fine_. Chances are, they haven’t even noticed the shift, much less been stuck on the slow path for it.”

“If,” the Doctor stressed, terrified to realise that her fear had very little to do with her team. It was a rather convenient cover story when compared to the crushing realisation of how quickly their time was running out and she was willing to keep it going for as long as needed. She’d accepted a long time ago that this was all she would get – loving her and worrying for her from afar, only voicing what she felt when River had done it first. It was a long, painstaking game, given how closed off her wife tended to be to any sort of communication that wasn’t either directly related to whatever mission she’d given herself or forced upon her in some way. She had always hoped to slowly ease her into it over the years but had never quite managed it – even in her very last moment, half-woman, half-ghost in the Doctor’s arms on Trenzalore, she had still preferred to listen to his voice as the essence of her slipped away. It had always been an easier way out when compared to putting herself in the vulnerable position instead.

River’s expression had morphed into a strange mix of exasperation and concern. Even now, fully unaware of the identity of the woman in front of her, she still managed to read her like an open book. It really should have been less of a surprise by now, the Doctor thought bitterly.

“We _will_ find them,” she vowed now, stepping closer and letting one of her hands rest on the Doctor’s shoulder, her hold firm enough to surprise anyone else into conviction. While she was by no means fragile, people tended to underestimate the kind of power she could yield when she really wanted to. “Everything about the plan stays the same, right?” She didn’t wait for a response, clearly used to taking charge in similar situations. The Doctor had started to wonder how often she had done this, exactly, and this was the first time it brought out something other than pride in her. It wasn’t fair – River was here on a job, she reminder herself, and what she had or hadn’t done in the long months of it were supposed to be a page of their combined history that the Doctor had closed a long time ago, but the sudden bouts of intimacy so far had brought both desperate need and a distant, bizarre sort of jealousy. “We go in, we see what we can find about this Angel – it seems to be one of the most powerful ones in the city and if their network is growing stronger, it might be the catalyst for that. Best case scenario: we take them all down. Worst case scenario: we get caught, I have to kill my way out of a crime boss’s house and then find your crew. However we look at this, it’s our only choice.”

“I know.” When she’d presented their case like this, it was impossible to argue with her – it always had been. The Doctor let out a defeated sigh. It was rather relaxing, in a way, knowing what all their options were, even if the number of said options could be contained on the fingers of one hand. Plus, capability of rewriting time notwithstanding, the chances of either of them losing their lives here, whether to death or to being forced back into the past, were really rather slim. Trusting River had been suspiciously easy since the very start no matter how much she’d fought it, but by now, it was a _given_. “I know. I’m not doubting you, it’s just— it’s been _months_. This entire city is one small chunk of a small planet and it’s not going to be strong enough to withstand a continuing paradox for long. The more things fall out of rhythm with the outside world, the more disappearances will happen, am I right?”

She knew she was, but it was still worth asking – both for her cover story and to catch River off guard; to get the chance to surprise her while also seeing how impressed she was by the observation. The matters of time and space weren’t an easy topic for some of the greatest minds in the Universe and while her wife had always accepted it as part of the picture when she’d been around the Doctor before, it felt _different_ through a supposed stranger’s eyes.

“Yes, of course,” River encouraged. She’d taken off her coat and was working on the elaborate buttons of the side of her dress absently as she headed into her room. It _was_ rather warm, the Doctor thought grimly, which would doubtlessly mean yet another wardrobe change to go with their most recent plan. “That’s why I plan on putting an end to it. _That_ , and it’s at least somewhat likely at this point that I’m actually immune to them. If there’s one person who could do anything about it, it’s me. I’m almost certain my Vortex Manipulator is perfectly capable of surviving another time shift; if I do get caught in the limbo somehow, I can sort things out from there.”

 _Loving the almost_ , River had said to her centuries into the past and a little over a day into the future, but this time, the sentiment wasn’t entirely shared. It wasn’t that the Doctor didn’t want to trust her, really, but the doubt had still managed to creep in. “You think you’ll somehow get yourself out.”

“No,” River conceded. She had no reason to hold back – as far as she was aware, the possibility of her getting stuck, torn between the fabric of time and space, wouldn’t be a cause for much grief when it came to her client. “I think I’d be able to tell everyone who matters what happened to me and that’s about it. Even I’m not selfish enough to hint where I am and let anyone else get trapped in an attempt to save me, but it’ll give me just the time I need to say goodbye.”

Oh, but this was so much like her wife; breaking the Doctor’s heart with a smile on her face. “You could be going to your death.”

“Could be.” River had clearly lost interest in the conversation in favour of browsing through her wardrobe instead. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

As much as she tried to stifle it, the spark of anger had found its way into the Doctor’s voice. “And the prospect doesn’t bother you, does it? Not at all?”

“Oh, no, I’m terrified.” The grin she got in return was as sincere as it was manic. It _had_ been a rather stupid question – she’d never feared anything more than she did another prison. She drew something out from in-between the elaborate outfits inside; dark and shimmery and altogether too familiar. “Wait here; I need to get dressed.”

***

It took approximately three more hours for River to do her hair _again_ , fiddle with the dress and coat to her hearts’s content and then pick out the shoes she wanted. The Doctor wasn’t used to waiting too long with no clear result in sight to begin with, but by the time they left, she was almost entirely sure she’d done it with the sole purpose of driving her insane. There could be no other excuse for this amount of effort going into something so mundane, and she said so as soon as they’d got into the car that River had picked today.

“Nothing of the sort, dear,” her detective informed her cheerfully as she glanced sideways, both at her and at the interactive navigation tool she’d pinned to the windscreen. “Clothes are a weapon just as much as anything else, I’ll have you know.” Her smile had turned far too smug for it to bring anything good and it would have filled the Doctor with the usual fond exasperation she felt at witnessing her wife’s antics if it hadn’t been for the fact that she knew this particular _weapon_ of hers better than she would have liked to. With River, any piece of clothing was a weapon, there was no denying that, but this? The Doctor had never really forgotten about this one.

The fine material of the dark skirt and the coarse leather of the shimmering corset above paired with the coat she’d picked, all of it clearly unsuited for their mission but ever so typical for River and her urges to fully commit to whatever asinine disguise she’d picked this time, had caught the Doctor’s eye the moment he had seen them on the cover of a detective novel that he’d found in his pocket and then, only a few immeasurable hours later, in person too. Both of those instances had made him feel like he was falling in love with her for the first time all over again. River had never worn the dress after that day and perhaps she was right – it was a weapon and a reminder all wrapped into one, nearly far too dangerous to be worth the awe. _Nearly_.

Taking a fleeting look at her doubtlessly admiring, if a little devastated, expression, her wife ventured, “I can teach you to appreciate that, if you’d like.”

The Doctor scoffed before she could help herself. She’d read the description River had given of herself in the book she’d later use as a guide – despite it being nothing but a short sketch of who the unsuspecting reader had on their hands, the sort of confidence oozing off of it had been just as hypnotising in words as it was now, right in front of her.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be as good at it as you are.”

Well, she wasn’t being entirely sincere. She _was_ sure she could never be on River’s level when it came to the finer points of staying under the radar and still managing to show yourself off as much as possible. It was what had drawn her to the job of a detective, the Doctor supposed – moving silently through the shadows while still somehow shining brighter than anyone else had always been one of her wife’s biggest strengths. She clearly revelled in everything around her – the glamour, the mystery, even a bit of the misery that reigned around them. It was the kind of world that she’d spent her entire life in; if nothing else, at least it was _familiar_.

“There aren’t many places in the Universe that would require you to be as good as me.” From anyone else, it would have been terribly immodest, but River, with her attention switching between the Doctor, the road, and one of her many radars, had made it sound almost soothing. “Not unless you’re in the same business as me, that is. What is it that you and your crew do, exactly? You never said.”

“Oh, it’s just exploring.” This was an easy one, at least. A lot of the still-underdeveloped planets across the Cosmos, Earth included, had only barely started being aware of the enormity of the space they were spinning madly into and were ever so eager to expand their horizons. Gallifrey, by the time the Doctor had been young enough to decide what he wanted to do with his life, had already been rather bored by the concept, backed up by the confidence of having mapped up every star and planet and species ever born, but that had never been particularly discouraging – not when the Doctor was still proving them wrong to this day every time she stumbled onto something new. “That’s all I ever do, really.”

“It’s always exciting, living in a world that’s still in that stage.” River’s agreement, encouraging at a first glance, was rather brittle. “Earth has plenty of those milestones still to come and it’s shaped _so_ much of their history. I, in particular, have always had an interesting relationship with the Moon.”

“ _Their_ history?” The Doctor echoed. It shouldn’t draw much attention, she thought: Joan Smith would have been confused and she herself was painfully curious. Oh, River had talked about her years on Earth, of course; every time she’d been made to stay or had purposefully been looking for something, up to and including her parents. It had always been detached, almost careless, as if she’d never considered it a home and the Doctor had refrained from asking, well aware of how confusing and traumatic a lot of it had been. Now, under the guise of a clueless stranger, it felt a little easier to probe, armed with the knowledge that River wouldn’t feel obligated to speak. “I thought you said you’d grown up here.”

“I did.” Her wife’s focus had very carefully diverted to the city in front of them and nothing else, as if she feared that a glance in the wrong direction could be enough to make her reveal more than she intended to. “In more ways than one; more _times_ than one. It’s really very—” Her grip on the steering wheel had turned resolute enough to look painful. “—complicated.”

Perhaps this wouldn’t be as guilt-free as the Doctor had hoped, after all. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“You see, it’s not that I don’t,” River confided, a quick glance in her general direction backing up the truth behind it. “It’s just that no one would ever understand it, not even the— forget that, _I_ barely understand it and I’ve had more years than you can imagine to try and do just that. You saw what time does to me.”

The Doctor wasn’t entirely sure if a response was required, but she nodded all the same. She had seen more than she’d expected to by now – and on more than one occasion, no less – and wasn’t likely to forget it anytime soon, if ever. Her wife’s wide, unfocused eyes as the Universe raced through her mind was a terrifying sight, beautiful and fascinating as it was, and all the times she’d told her how much she admired her for handling the way her mind worked suddenly didn’t feel adequate. It had happened so many times with two – three, now – different faces and it still wasn’t enough, but that was always the problem with them, wasn’t it? There was never enough _time_. It was as ridiculously stupid as it was heartbreaking.

River shrugged, as if she could hear her thoughts and had decided to respond with her usual infuriating acceptance. “It’s the same with my memories. There’s the real world and the world of nightmares and they’re the same thing. I have memories I’m almost entirely sure aren’t real, ones I wish were, and ones I dread the possibility of. Every time I look back, I can see all the ways time could have changed; every single line diverting from the choices I – or, more frequently, someone else – made. So yes,” she said at least, the corner of her mouth lifting in a semblance of a smile, “I did grow up on Earth. I know it better than almost anyone actually living here could ever explore it, but that’s not— I’ve never felt particularly welcome here. My home is light years away.”

It wasn’t all that far, really, the Doctor wanted to reassure her. Her home would only arrive in twenty-four hours in a blaze of near-explosions and the fraying matter of time already surrounding them. But there would have been no way for Joan Smith to be aware of any of this and in the end, it was only the sound of River’s voice that stopped her from doing something incredibly stupid.

“Speaking of home,” she said, tapping the scanner where the radio should have been with an impatient gesture, “I think I’m finally picking up on yours. It’s just slightly outside the bubble of this temporal spot, so if there’s any hope of getting to your ship, this must be it.”

She should have been happy, the Doctor knew. Her team was out there, dealing with this entire situation stars knew how while she sat down here, prolonging her stay as much as possible and playing into her wife’s detective novel of a life, desperately hoping to never have to let go. Forget happy, she should have been _guilty_.

All she could bring herself to be was afraid.

In the end, it all boiled down to her allowing this to go on for far too long. She should have told her who she was ages ago, right at the very start. It would have been so _easy_ to wipe her memory afterwards, but she’d been too unwilling to inflict upon her what so many others had before; too wrapped up in love and hope to see that there had never been any other way. It had been _absurd_ , even imagining that she could get the chance for another collision of their timelines and, hand in hand with it, another goodbye that wouldn’t feel quite as final as all the others that had come before it. Absurd and pointless and all the more painful in the end, and she should have—

“Miss Smith?” River’s voice was gentle and there was a note of concern to it now.  They were in the outskirts of the city again, the Doctor noticed, rows of warehouses lining on either side of the road as they approached their destination, and her wife nodded towards the navigation once again. “Are you seeing this? You’re going home.”

“I know.” Despite the – rather pathetic, really – attempt at a smile, the response came out too strangled to sound anything other than tortured. She couldn’t breathe and that wasn’t too much of a problem, typically, even if it certainly felt like it now. “I know, it’s just—”

Much to her gratitude, River had stopped paying her any mind in favour of the increasingly louder beeping coming from her machinery. She watched it with a frown, adjusting the settings with her free hand, to no avail. “How big is your ship, exactly?”

“That’s, er.” She couldn’t do this. She never had been fully capable of facing the fact that their time was coming to an end, no matter how often it had happened, and now was no different. “ _Big_ , I suppose, if you compare it to a lot of other vessels. It’s all a bit relative, you know.”

“I’ll say,” River muttered, her expressive eyes widening just a moment later as she fiddled some more. “I’m sorry, I think I got it wrong. There’s no way— this isn’t your ship.”

She wasn’t going to cry, the Doctor thought resolutely. Whether the impulse had been provoked by disappointment or relief or frustration, she wasn’t sure, but it was very definitely there and she _couldn’t_ give in now.

“You _just_ said it couldn’t be anything else.”

“Well, I was wrong.” River had taken a swift turn into a dimly-lit alley and slammed the brakes so quickly that it sent the Doctor lurching forward in her seat. “This is _better_.”

“Oi!” She was already out of the car and therefore at least somewhat immune to the outrage that followed, but the Doctor made a show of it all the same. “There’s nothing better than my ship.”

“We’ll see about that once I get this one to find the way to yours,” River quipped with a brand new spring in her step, her stolen screwdriver hastily pointed towards the door in front of her. The building was clearly in use, if somewhat derelict, and it gave little resistance. “It seems to be in the same kind of stasis that I was thinking that your ship might— well, never mind, I’ll know as soon as I manage to get on board.”

“Miss Malone,” the Doctor warned, eyes already locked onto the Angel in the middle of the room. It had been used as a centrepiece for a while, it seemed, although it was bound in too many ropes now to suggest anything but paranoia on its owner’s side.

“ _Oh_.” River’s face brightened as she looked up from her scanner, finally clocking in on her dubious prize. “There you are. Okay,” she added, shoulders set as she strode towards it, “Let’s get down to business.”

 _Right_. Giving into the Angel’s affect to have a look into its power source had been the plan since the start, just as the Doctor’s own plan had been to somehow prevent it from happening. As well as underestimating River’s technology enough to not realise that it would recognise the TARDIS, she had thought that she would get some more time to think of something, but then again, wasn’t that usually the case?

“No,” she said, soldiering on despite the overly loud exasperated sigh that followed from River’s direction. She stepped forward blindly, reaching out for her wife’s hand without taking her eyes off of the statue. “You can’t. Whatever it is that you’ve seen, whoever you think is coming, it isn’t worth the risk.”

“How would you know?” River wasn’t even a little bit phased, it seemed, and the hint of curiosity in her voice was the only thing the Doctor could hold on to. It would have to be enough.

“It couldn’t possibly be. If the Angel kills you—”

“I told you, they can’t do that.” For someone marching forward without any semblance of a direction, River sounded awfully confident. She had tested this before, she’d said so herself and perhaps it did work like that – the Angel back in the house where the Doctor ~~had landed~~ would land tomorrow hadn’t harmed her and at the time he’d assumed that it lacked the strength and even if there was more to it, it was still insane to risk it all to a flimsy theory and no backup plan. It wasn’t that River wanted to end up stuck, she knew; it was that she preferred getting stuck in the TARDIS rather than the endless void that could await her if she wasn’t sent into the past, but the thought did nothing to warm her hearts when so much was at stake. “Not to me. I’m almost entirely sure and—”

“Almost entirely sure is _not enough_!”

 _That_ made her look up, the Doctor thought with a surge of perverse satisfaction. Yelling usually did the trick with River even when nothing else would. She looked startled, but it had had the desired effect – for now, at least, she’d stopped and the Doctor had been just about ready to keep talking when her wife stepped closer again, her eyes as well as her hold where their hands were connected even more determined than before. The Doctor blinked away from the Angel and sure enough, it didn’t move – it was far too restricted to do anything of the sort, but if either of them touched it—

“I want you to listen to me,” River started, voice stony and careful and nearly loving all at once. “The machine caught up there is the most powerful ship ever created. If the Angels find a way to corrupt and exploit that, this entire planet – this entire system, possibly – could implode in on itself. I’ve seen a similar thing happen before, I’ve lived through it and I never want to experience it again.” _I’m sorry, my love_. The memory was as stark in the Doctor’s mind as the impression of it she could feel from River’s mind. For someone like her, a time loop must have been the most terrifying thing that the Universe had to offer. “If I’m right, I’m too complicated for any Angel to hurt me. If I’m wrong, I might still end up where I need to be and get us both home. Don’t you want to go home, Miss Smith?”

 _I’m already home_. “Not if it costs you your life. To tell you the truth, there’s nothing in the whole wide Cosmos that costs as much as that. Not me, not the ship you’re chasing, _nothing_.”

“Why do I always end up with people like you on my hands?” If she wanted it to be an admonishment, it hadn’t quite worked. River seemed to hesitate for a moment before leaning in, lightning fast, and kissing her so briefly that the Doctor barely had the chance to chase after her once she was gone. It didn’t do much good – her wife was keeping her at an arm’s length, just like usual. It seemed to be her modus operandi for near-death experiences and even after so many years, it never failed to leave her feeling like she could have done more. More to convince her, more to keep her safe, more to save her from herself – more of everything they could get for themselves before their time ran out. “It’s a good thing that it’s no one else’s choice to make, then. Tell you what, if I end up where I think I will, I might not be needing this anymore; not in the near future, that is. You’ve watched me work with it long enough to know how to get yourself back to your ship in case I don’t manage it and bring it back to me.” As the Doctor watched, eyes wide with horror, she started unclasping the Vortex Manipulator from her wrist. “If I’m wrong – which, I have to tell you, is a very rare occurrence – you can be the one to save me. How about that?”

There was no point left in pretending. The Doctor neared her again, halting her hand when it was halfway through removing the device. Her free hand cupped River’s cheek, bringing her closer, drawing her in like she hadn’t been allowed until now, but— but River had kissed her. If nothing else, she could at least remember _this_ – no matter what happened, her wife would always recognise pieces of her even if she hadn’t allowed herself to see the whole picture; would always fall a little in love with what few shreds she could get her hands on.“I don’t want you to need saving.”

“Me neither, but it does happen occasionally.” River had leant into her touch slightly and, as much as the Doctor detested the thought, it felt painfully like a final moment of comfort for both of them. “If I’m lucky, I won’t be alone. On the off chance that I am, I’ll still try to come and get you, I promise.”

She’d stepped closer to the Angel again, risking a look towards it, and the Doctor gravitated towards her again, unable to stay away. Her fingers her intertwined with River’s, sliding under hers until she could reach for the controls while her wife kept herself occupied with trying to convince her. “That’s not what it’s _about_. It’s not about me or my crew or any of—” She hadn’t meant to admit that much – hadn’t even meant to _think_ it, considering how horrible it actually was – but there was nothing left to lose by now. “I can’t let you go just like this.”

“I’m sorry, darling.” The endearment was nowhere near the usual condescending amusement that she bestowed it with upon strangers; instead, it had somehow managed to be both confused and sincere. “There’s no other way. Even if it isn’t about your ship – which it should be, from what you’ve told me – it is about this one. I can’t let it or its inhabitants stay trapped. It doesn’t matter what it costs me; it never has. And it really _is_ my choice to make.”

She would hate her for this for however long they had left, the Doctor thought as River turned towards the Angel again, their hands still clasped in one another. She’d hate _herself_ for it for the rest of the same time if she left her friends alone for even a while longer, but the prospect wasn’t enough to convince her not to set the coordinates she needed just as her wife reached for the outstretched beckoning arm of the statue.

“No,” she said again, decisive enough to draw some of her attention despite River’s determination to ignore her. She tended to operate like this – once she’d said goodbye, nothing could make her look back. Well, almost nothing. There had always been a loophole; one lone person in all the Cosmos that she would always respond to. It was about time the Doctor learnt how to abuse that. “I’m sorry, River, but it’s really not.”

The last thing she differentiated from the growing darkness crowding them in was the sight of River’s eyes as she turned around, shining with an emotion she couldn’t yet discern and a question she didn’t get to ask as the Vortex swallowed them both.


End file.
